


































'0 




V I n 


1 'P 




.0 


* *“3 C^ 

^ t\ \ '^ 

O 4 W 



0 M O 


o /- ^ or ' 

N. 8 I ^ , 




'=^. * 0 s 0 . 


> <0 


.* A^^’ •"?/> ' 

^ ‘V «• 



* 'K< C.- 

r- 

^ -a' *" \ r^ -- 

s^ \ ‘ . /'o, ' • • ' \pA . - ♦ .% ' '" ' :/r “ ^ ‘ ' • • ' 

s', -oo' 

: ,0 O^. , <y? 



i- O 

’ i' « M \V , 






vi f . <i ^ 


r / 






r‘ =WC^^ 


* A^' 'Pr. 

« AV '/'- 

^ -«Mr . 

^ 0 , k \X ^ ^ '^/ '/=><, S " aO < 





^J’<& 


^ r? '; 



0 « w 





A V ^r. 




'* .Vi 

2 ^ ’\ ^ 

- / ■/ ' 

^ o 6 

<. ^ ' * ;? ^ ^ V ■* '\ ^ ^ 

^ 'n t /^^2_ •■ iK^ _ V .:. 

* f 


>p°^ 

, 0 '' (. ' • » A V 

"=■ <^' * 
vW^ W// ' A Z ^ z x- ^ 


tj^ \ '» 

" CP' ^ 




» 

1 «• 

oS ^ 

>> V ' '^'^vvnS=^ ^ 

* ^ - - '^. * ') S 0 ■ N.^ 



0 






0 « k 


/ ^o ^ 

* l> <1 ’ ^ lift 

^ "^V -1’ 

-oo’^ K 



aX' 



»\.\ 




o ^ '-z^ ^ o . 


'-. >5 A - ^ ^ 

^ 0 , k ,'\ ^ '' 

c 0 *' « '^b 

^ ^OAV^ 

^ K ® 


c 

r. 

" 

. A- 

Q>' ,< ' • , 

-i -p >'o * 

X ^/rr/^ ^ .\ ^ 

: ^ 

Y * ^ 


• 0 ^ C ^ 



A y <1 ^ - 

♦ * '^-, * ■') M 0 ■ * 8 1 \ “ \'' 

^ C* V '^ ' ^ ^ y^ ^ ^ y C‘ V 

- ^'':„ .^X■ »''!^5S&»''« '^x'V. aV 

kV 'Z'- ^ r. ^ S ■'^ 



» 

1 • y 

. ri^ y 1 r^> h \ 

* 0 s 0 ^ 8 I ' vX' y, o o . 

' .-. A'^' y, . i^lZ^' 


V • • , ‘is"' 


X 






f 



« 



I 

I 


t 


¥ 






1 


I 

/ 


f 




/ ^ 


4 





% 





• I 


r* 



I 









OF THE BEST CURREfTr h STANDMD LITERJO-URi 


Vol. 11. No. 569. April 21, lSs5. Annual Subscription, ^ao.OO. 


THE 

ABBOTT 


BY 

SIR WALTER SCOTT, Bast. 

Authok of “WAVKPJ-F.V,” "QUENTIN DURWAR.D,' 
■ COUNT ROBERT OF PARIS,” Etc. 


Eut-'-ed at the I’ost Office, N. as second-class matter. 
Copyright, ISrf-l, by Joh.’v VV. Lovell Co. 



J“D| I Qajiu *)gli!IfemiMiiiin ni! ¥T:m.Y P [ffii,iSHT:n, f newstands. 




Iknow ail Momcn by .tmse peesent 

while sundry and almost countless imitations of and substuut 
Enoch MorgL’s Sons Sapolio are offered by unsorapnlous parties 
do not hesitate to represent them as the original article, 

ZTbiS HUbCUtUVC WITNESSETH, That there is but 
Sapolio, to wit:— the original article manufactured by the L 
MOTgan’s Sons Co., of New York, unsurpasssed in quahty, unexct 
in popularity, and widely known ^ • 

not only through its own merits, 
but through the many original 
modes which have been adopted 
to introduce it to the attention of 
the public. Imitation is the sin- 
cerest flattery. Cheapness is a 
poor proof of quality. Cheap im- 
itations are doubly doubtful. The 
most critical communities are the 
most liberal purchasers of Sapolio 
which they invariably find to be 
worth the price they pay for it. 

In Witness Whereof, we hereby 
affix a great seal and our cor- 
porate title. V 

ENOCH MORGAN’S SONS 



ESTABLISHED HALE A CENTURY. 



..iiri IKI 


NOT.EQUND njakes 
THAT Will WELL REPAY A^f 


THAT WILL. 

INVESTIGATION 

^.TtlOSEWHO^ TO S£C\JRe 

THE BESTSAFE 

J^ARVJNSAFECO. 

.... null Ar\FI DHI 


NEW YORK, PHILADELPHIA, 
LONDON., EK^LAND. 



^viear Dorset that will neither break down nor roll 


TRY BAIili’S CORSETS. 

If you value health and comfort, 

WEAR BALE’S CORSETS. 

no ‘‘Ca^^g 

BllY RALE’S CORSETS. 

If you desire a Corset that yields with every motion of the body, 
examine BALL’S CORSETS. 

If you want a perfect fit and support without compression, 

ESE BALL’S CORSETS. 

Ba?i^°Co^seta^^^ peculiar construction it is impossible to break steels in 

The Elastic Sections m Ball’s Corsets contain no rubber, and are war^ 
ranted to out-wear the Corset. 

, Sver7 pair cold with the following guarantee : 

satisfactory in every respect after thresh 
weeks tria , the money paid for them will be refunded (by the 
dealer), Soiled or Unsoiled. ^ 

of Ball’s Corsets has Induced rival manufacturers 
mll^te them. If you want a Corset that will give perfect satisfaction- 
on purchasing one marked. Patented Feb. 22, 1881. ^ 

see that the name BALL is on the Box. 

For Sale by all Leadins Dry Goods Dealers. 


I 


HENRY GEORGE’S LATEST WORK 



or 




9 


• ^ 

AN CXAMINATION OF THE TARIFF QUESTION WITH ESPECIAL REGAfA 
TO THE INTERESTS OF LABOR. 

By HENRY GEORGE, 

Author of “ Progress and. Poverty,” “Social Problems,’ 
“The Land Question,” etc. 


1^11109 Cloth, !F*irice, ^l.SO, 


COISTTEISTTS- 


I. Introductory. 

n. Clearing ground. 

in. Of method. 

rv. Protection as a universal need. 

V. The protective unit. 

VI. Trade. 

Vn. Production and producers. 

Vm. Tariffs for revenue. 

IX. Tariffs for protection. 

X. The encouragement of indus- 
ti-y. 

XT. The home market and home 
trade. 

xn. Exports and Imports. 

xm. Confusions arising from the 
use of money. 

XIV. Do high wages necessitate pro- 
tection ? 

XV. Of advantages and disadvan- 
tages as reasons for pro- 
tection. 


XVI. The development of manu- 
factures. 

XVn. Protection and producers. 
XVm. Effect of protection on Am- 
erican industry. 

XTX. Protection and wages. 

XX. The abolition of protection. 
XXL Inadequacy of the free trade 
argument. 

XXir. The real *veakness of free 
trade. 

XXm. Tire real strength of pro- 
tection. 

XXIV. The paradox. 

XXV. The robber that takes all 

that is left. 

XXVI. True free trade. 

XXVTL The lion in the path. 
XXVm. Free trade and socialism. 
XXIX. Practical politics. 

XXX. Conclusion. 


Ibr sale by all booksellers, or sent prepaid by mail on receipt 


of price. 


HENRY GEORGE & CO., 

16 Astor Place, New York. 



' The Century Magazfne. 

r HE CENTURY is an illustrated monthly magazine, issued on the 
first day of each month, and containing one hundred and sixty 
[ages (or more), with from forty to eighty illustrations. It has a regular 
rculation of about two hundred thousand copies, often reaching and 
'metimes exceeding two hundred and twenty-five thousand. Of these a 
rge edition is sold in England, where The Century has been the 
Bkding periodical of its class for upwards of ten years. The magazine 
is founded in J870. In 1881 it took the name “ The Century,” and the 
/ime of the corporation which published it became “ The Century Co.” 
' I has been called by the N. Y. Nation “the best edited magazine 
in the world.” 

In it are published novels and stories by our leading writers, including 
Frank R. Stockton, George \V. Cable, Dr. Edward Eggleston, Julian 
Hawthorne, Mary Hallock Foote, and others. It contains illustrated 
articles in travel, science, art, history, and other 
fields of literature; essays on the prominent ques- 
tions of the day; poems ; sketches, etc. It is “ the 
most American of our magazines.” A remark- 
able serial is now appearing in The Century. 
It is a history of our own country in its most 
critical period, as told in 

THE LIFE OF LINCOLI^, 

BY HIS CONFIDENTIAL SECRETARIES, JOHN G. NICOLAY 
AND COL. JOHN HAY. 

I This great work, begun with the sanction of Presi- 
dent Lincoln and continued under the authority of 
his son, the Hon. Robert T. Lincoln, is the only 
full and authoritative record of Lincoln’s eventful 
life. Its authors have had every facility for writing a complete and 
accurate biography, and they have ardently fulfilled their duty, and have 
produced “the most important of American historical biographies.” 
Subscription, $4z,00 per year ; 35 cents per number, 

SOLD BY ALL DEALERS. 

THE CENTURY CO., NEW YORK. 



St. Nicholas^ for Young Folks. 

Edited by MARY MAPES DODGE. 

St. Nicholas is a monthly illustrated magazine for girls and boys of 
all ages. The little children are remembered every month, and those 
who are blossoming into manhood and womanhood are not too old to 
find amusement and instruction in its pages. The Christian Union 
said long ago that it was “for children from five to eighty-five.” 

It has a large circulation in England as well as in America. The 
"'yndon Times has said, “We have nothing like it on this side.” It is 
\n and true and helpful, — it has been called “a liberal education in 
f." Every one who has seen St. Nichol.as likes it. 

Ascription, $3.00 per year : 25 cents per number. 

THE CENTURY CO., New York. 


3E»I3: YJSIO z 

GLUTEN SUFP0SITORI1 

Cure Constipation and Piles ! 

Dr. a. W. Thompson, Northampton, Mass., says : “I have tested the Glute 
positories, and consider them valuable, as indeed, I expected from the excelle 
their theory.” 

Db. Wm. Tod Helmuth declares the Gluten Suppositories to be “ the best 
for constipation which I have ever prescribed.” 

“ As Sancho Panza said of sleep, so I say of your Gluten Suppositories: Got, 
the man who invented them I E. L. Ripley, Burlington, Vt. 

50 Cents by Mail, Circulars Free, 

HEALTH POOD CO., fth Avenue and 10th St., N. 




The Best Utterance 


— ON THE — 


LABOR QUESTION. 


“ Solutions Sociales” translated by Marie Howland. 


“Social Solutions,” a semi-monthly pamphlet, containing each 
A twelfth part of an admirable English translation of M. Godin’s state- 
ment of the course of study which led him to conceive the Social 
Palace at Guise, France. There is no question that this publication 
makes an era in the growth of the labor question. It should serve as 
the manual for organized labor in its present contest, since its teachings 
will as surely lead to the destruction of the wages system as the aboli- 
tion movement lead to that of chattel slavery. Each number contains 
articles of importance, besides the portion of the translation. Many 
of these are translated from M. Godin’s contributions to the socialistic 
propaganda in Europe. 

Published as regular issues of the “Lovell Library,” by the 
John W. Lovell Company, 14 and 16 Vesey Street, New York, N. Y., 
at ten cents per number ; the subscription of $1.00 secures the de* 
livery of the complete series. 


JOHN W. LOVELL COMPANY, 


14: and 16 Vesey Street, 


NEW YORK, 


THE ABBOT 


BEING A SEQUEL TO THE MONASTERY 


BY 

SIR WALTER ' SCOTT, Bart. 



loChle\^n castle 


NEW YORK 

JOHN W. LOVELL COMPANY 

14 AND 16 Vesey Street 






? vr 

- \> ■ 


SIR WALTER SCOTT’S WORKS 


CONTAINED IN LOVELL 


S LIBRARY. 


KO. 

145 Ivanhoe, 2 Parts, each 
■ 359 Lady of the Lake, with Notes, 

^ 489 Bride of Lammermoor, 

.. ■ 490 Black Dwarf, 

. ^ . 492 Castle Dangerous, 

493 Legend of Montrose, 

495 The Surgeon’s Daughter, . 

499 Heart of Mid-Lothian, . 

502 Waverley, .... 

504 Fortunes of Nigel, 

509 Peveril of the Peak, . 

515 The Pirate, .... 
536 Poetical Works, . , 

544 Redgauntlet, ^ . 

551 Woodstock, 

557 Count Robert of Paris, . 

569 The Abbot, 

575 Quentin Durward, 

581 The Talisman, 

586 St. Ronan’s Well, 

595 Anne of Geierstein, . 

605 Aunt Margaret’s Mirror, 

607 Chronicles of the Canongate, 
609 The Monastery, 

620 Guy Mannering, 

625 Kenilworth, . , , , 

629 The Antiquary, 

632 Rob Roy, . , , ^ . 

635 The Betrothed, 

638 Fair Maid of Perth, 

641 Old Mortality, . . , 


PRICE, 

ISC. 

20c. 

20c. 

IOC. 

15c. 

15c. 

IOC. 

30c. 

20c. 

20c. 

30c. 

20c. 

40c. 

25c. 

20c. 

20c. 

20c. 

20c. 

20c. 

20c. 

20c. 

IOC. 

15c. 

20c. 

20C. 

2SC. 

20c. 

20C. 

20c. 

20c. 

20c. 


TROW’S 

r»INTINQ AND BOOKBINDING COMPANY, 
NEW YORK. 



Domum mansit — lanam fecit. 

Ancient Roman Epitaph. 

She keepit close the hous, and birlit at the quhele. 

Gawain Douglas. 

The time which passes over our hfeads so imperceptibly, 
makes the same gradual change in habits, manners, and 
character, as in personal appearance. At the revolution 
of every five years we find ourselves another, and yet the 
same — there is a change of views, and no less of the light 
in which we regard them ; a change of motives as well as 
of actions. Nearly twice that space had glided away over 
the head of Halbert Glendinning and his lady, betwixt the 
period of our former narrative, in which they played a dis- 
tinguished part, and the date at which our present tale 
commences. 

Two circumstances only had imbittered their union, 
which was otherwise as happy as mutual affection could 
render it. The first of these was indeed the common ca- 
>mitv of Scotland, being the distracted state of that un- 
ippy country, where every man’s sword was directed 


12 


THE ABBOT. 


against his neighbor’s bosom. Glendinning had proved 
what Murray expected of him, a steady friend, strong in 
battle, and wise in counsel, adhering to him, from motives 
of gratitude, in situations where by his own unbiassed will 
he would either have stood neuter, or have joined the op- 
posite party. Hence, when danger was near — and it was 
seldom far distant — Sir Halbert Glendinning, for he now 
bore the rank of knighthood, was perpetually summoned 
to attend his patron on distant expeditions, or on perilous 
enterprises, or to assist him with his counsel in the doubt- 
ful intrigues of a half-barbarous court. He was thus fre- 
quently, and for a long space, absent from his castle and 
from his lady ; and to this ground of regret we must add, 
that their union had not been blessed with children, to oc- 
cupy the attention of the Lady of Avenel while she was 
thus deprived of her husband’s domestic society. 

On such occasions she lived almost entirely secluded from 
the world, within the walls of her paternal mansion. Vis- 
iting amongst neighbors was a matter entirely out of the 
question, unless on occasions of solemn festival, and then 
it was chiefly confined to near kindred. Of these the Lady 
of Avenel had none who survived, and the dames of the 
neighboring barons affected to regard her less as the heiress 
of the House of Avenel than as the wife of a peasant, the 
son of a church vassal, raised up to mushroom eminence 
by the capricious favor of Murray. 

The pride of ancestry, which rankled in the bosom of 
the ancient gentry, was more openly expressed by their 
ladies, and was, moreover, imbittered not a little by the 
political feuds of the time, for most of the Southron chiefs 
were friends to the authority of the Queen, and very jeal- 
ous of the power of Murray. The Castle of Avenel was, 
therefore, on all these accounts, as melancholy and solitary 
a residence for its lady as could well be imagined. Still it 
had the essential recommendation of great security. The 
pader is already aware that the fortress was built upon an 
islet on a small lake, and was only accessible by a cause- 
way, intersected by a double ditch, defended by two draw- 
bridges, so that without artillery, it might in those days be 
considered as impregnable. It was only necessary, therefore, 
to secure against surprise, and the service of six able men 
within the castle was sufficient for that purpose. If more 
serious danger threatened, an ample garrison was supplier, 
by the male inhabitants of a little hamlet, which, under tl 
auspices of Halbert Glendinning, had arisen on a smaL 


THE ABBOT. 


13 


piece of level ground, betwixt the lake and the hill, nearly- 
adjoining to the spot where the causeway joined the main- 
land. The I.ord of Avenel had found it an easy matter to 
procure inhabitants, as he was not only a kind and benefi- 
cent overlord, but well qualified, both by his experience in 
arms, his high character for wisdom and integrity, and his 
favor with the powerful Earl of Murray, to protect and de- 
fend those wdio dwelt under his banner. In leaving his 
castle for any length of time, he had, therefore, the conso- 
lation to reflect, that this village afforded, on the slightest 
notice, a band of thirty stout men, which was more than 
sufficient for its defence ; while the families of the villagers, 
as was usual on such occasions, fled to the recesses of the 
mountains, drove their cattle to the same places of shelter, 
and left the enemy to work their will on their miserable 
cottages. 

One guest only resided generally, if not constantly, at 
the Castle of Avenel. This was Henry Warden, w’ho now 
felt himself less able for the stormy task imposed on the 
reforming clergy ; and, having by his zeal given personal 
offence to many of the leading nobles and chiefs, did not 
consider himself as perfectly safe, unless when within the 
walls of the strong mansion of some assured friend. He 
ceased not, however, to serve his cause as eagerly with his 
pen as he had formerly done with his tongue, and had en- 
gaged in a furious and acrimonious contest concerning 
the sacrifice of the mass, as it was termed, with the Abbot 
Eustatius, formerly the Sub-Prior of Kennaquhair. An- 
swers, replies, duplies, triplies, quadruplies, followed thick 
upon each other, and displayed, as is not unusual in con- 
troversy, fully as much zeal as Christian charity. The 
disputation very soon became as celebrated as that of John 
Knox and the Abbot of Crosraguel, raged nearly as fiercely, 
and, for aught I know, the publications to which it gave 
rise may be as precious in the eyes of bibliographers.* 
But the engrossing nature of his occupation rendered the 
theologian not the most interesting companion for a soli- 
tary female ; and his grave, stern, and absorbed deport- 
ment, which seldom showed any interest except in that 

'' The tracts which appeared in the Disputation between the Scottish 
*mer and Quentin Kennedy, the last Abbot of Crosraguel, are among 
'rcestin Scottish Bibliography. See M’Crie’s Zi/f of Knox, p. 258. 
'.iscussion, which related to the mass, was published by Knox in 
ad reprinted by Boswell in 1812, and again in Knox’s Works, voL 


14 


THE ABBOT. 


which concerned his religious profession, made his presence 
rather add to than diminish the gloom which hung over 
the Castle of Avenel. To superintend the tasks of numer- 
ous female domestics was the principal part of the Lady’s 
daily employment ; her spindle and distaff, her Bible, and 
a solitary walk upon the battlements of the castle, or upon 
the causeway, or occasionally, but more seldom, upon the 
banks of the little lake, consumed the rest of the day. But 
so great was the insecurity of the period, that when she 
ventured to extend her walk beyond the hamlet, the ward- 
er on the watch-tower was directed to keep a sharp look 
out in every direction, and four or fiv^e men held themselves 
in readiness to mount and sally forth from the castle on 
the slightest appearance of alarm. 

Thus stood affairs at the castle, when, after an absence 
of several weeks, the Knight of Avenel, which was now the 
title most frequently given to Sir Halbert Glendinning, 
was daily expected to return home. Day after day, how- 
ever, passed away, and he returned net. Letters in those 
days were rarely written, and the Knight must have re- 
sorted to a secretary to express his intentions in that man- 
ner ; besides, intercourse of all kinds was precarious and 
unsafe, and no man cared to give any public intimation of 
the time and direction of a journey, since, if his route were 
publicly known, it was always likely he might in that case 
meet with more enemies than friends upon the road. The 
precise day, therefore, of Sir Halbert’s return was not 
fixed, but that which his lady’s fond expectation had cal- 
culated upon in her own mind had long since passed, and 
hope delayed began to make the heart sick. 

It was upon the evening of a sultry summer’s day, when 
the sun was half sunk behind the distant western moun- 
tains of Liddesdale, that the Lady took her solitary walk 
on the battlements of a range of "buildings which formed 
the front of the castle, where a flat roof of flag-stones pre- 
sented a broad and convenient promenade. The level 
surface of the lake, undisturbed except by the occasional 
dipping of a teal-duck, or coot, was gilded with the beams 
of the setting luminary, and reflected, as if in a golden 
mirror, the hills amongst which it lay embosomed. The 
scene, otherwise so lonely, was occasionally enlivened by 
the voices of the children in the village, which, softened 
by distance, reached the ear of the Lady in her solitary 
walk, or by the distant call of the herdsman, as he guide 
his cattle from the glen in which they had pastured all da 


THE ABBOT. 


15 


to place them in greater security for the night, in the im- 
mediate vicinity of the village. The deep lowing of the 
cows seemed to demand the attendance of the milk-maid- 
ens, who, singing shrilly and merrily, strolled forth, each 
with her pail on her head, to attend to the duty of the 
evening. The Lady of Avenel looked and listened ; the 
sounds which she heard reminded her of former days, when 
her most important employment, as well as her greatest 
delight, was to assist Dame Glendinning and Tibb Tacket 
in milking the cows at Glendearg. The thought was 
fraught with melancholy. 

“Why was I not,” she said, “the peasant girl which in 
all men’s eyes I seemed to be ? Halbert and I had then 
spent our life peacefully in his native glen, undisturbed 
by the phantoms either of fear or of ambition. His 
greatest pride had then been to show the fairest herd in 
the Halidome ; his greatest danger to repel some pilfer- 
ing snatcher from the Border ; and the utmost distance 
which would have divided us, woidd have been the chase 
of some outlying deer. But, alas ! what avails the blood 
which Halbert has shed, and the dangers which he en- 
counters, to support a name and rank, dear to him be- 
cause he has it from me, but which we shall never transmit 
to our posterity ! with me the name of Avenel must expire. 

She sighed as these reflections arose, and, looking to- 
ward the shore of the lake, her eye was attracted by a 
group of children of various ages, assenibled to see a 
little ship, constructed by some village artist, perform its 
first voyage on the water. It was launched amid the 
shouts of tiny voices and the clapping of little hands, and 
shot bravely forth on its voyage with a favoring wind, 
which promised to carry it to the other side of the lake. 
Some of the bigger boys ran round to receive and secure 
it on the farther shore, trying their speed against each 
other as they sprang like young fawns along the shingly 
verge of the lake. The rest, for whom such a journey 
seemed too arduous, remained watching the motions of 
the fairy vessel from the spot where it had been launched. 
The sight of their sports pressed on the mind of the 
childless Lady of Avenel. 

“Why are none of these prattlers mine? she con- 
tinued, pursuing the tenor of her melancholy reflections. 
“ Their parents can scarce find them the coarsest food — 
nd I, who could nurse them in plenty, I am doomed 

'•rer to hear a child call me mother ! ” 


i6 


THE ABBOT. 


The thought sunk on her heart with a bitterness which 
resembled envy, so deeply is the desire of offspring im- 
planted in the female breast. She pressed her hands to- 
gether as if she were wringing them in the extremity of 
her desolate feeling, as one whom Heaven had written 
childless. A large staghound of the greyhound species 
approached at this moment, and, attracted perhaps by 
the gesture, licked her hands and pressed his large head 
against them. He obtained the desired caress in return, 
but still the sad impression remained. 

“Wolf,” she said, as if the animal could have under- 
stood her complaints, “ thou art a noble and beautiful ani- 
mal ; but, alas! the love and affection that I long to be* 
stow is of a quality higher than can fall to thy share, 
though I love thee much.” 

And, as if she were apologizing to Wolf for withhold- 
ing from him any part of her regard, she caressed his 
proud head and crest, while, looking in her eyes, he 
seemed to ask her what she wanted, or what he could do 
to show his attachment. At this moment a shriek of dis- 
tress was heard on the shore, from the playful group 
which had been lately so jovial. The Lady looked and 
saw the cause with great agony. 

The little ship, the object of the children’s delighted at- 
tention, had stuck among some tufts of the plant w’hich 
bears the water-lily, that marked a shoal in the lake about 
an arrow-flight from the shore. A hardy little boy, who 
had taken the lead in the race round the margin of the 
lake, did not hesitate a moment to strip off his wylie-coat^ 
plunge into the water, and swim toward the object of 
their common solicitude. The first movement of the 
Lady was to call for help ; but she observed that the boy 
swam strongly and fearlessly, and as she saw that one 
or two villagers, who were distant spectators of the inci- 
dent, seemed to give themselves no uneasiness on his ac- • 
count, she supposed that he was accustomed to the exer- 
cise, and that there was no danger. But whether, in 
swimming, the boy had struck his breast against a sunk- 
en rock, or whether he was suddenly taken vvith cramp, 
or whether he had over-calculated his own strength, it 
so happened, that when he had disembarrassed the little 
plaything from the flags in which it was entangled, and 
sent it forward on its course, he had scarce swam a few 
yards in his way to the shore, than he raised himself 
suddenly from the water, and screamed aloud, clappinf 


THE ABBOT. 


17 


his hands at the same time with an expression of fear and 
pain. 

The Lady of Avenel, instantly taking the alarm, called 
hastily to the attendants to get the boat ready. But this 
was an affair of some time. The only boat permitted to 
be used on the lake was moored within the second cut 
which intersected the canal, and it was several minutes ere 
it could be unmoored and got underway. Meantime, the 
Lady of Avenel, with agonizing anxiety, saw that the ef- 
forts that the poor boy made to keep himself afloat were 
now exchanged for a faint struggling, which would soon 
have been over, but for aid equally prompt and unhoped 
for. Wolf, who, like some of that large species of grey- 
hound, was a practised water-dog, had marked the object 
of her anxiety, and, quitting his mistress’s side, had sought 
the nearest point from which he could with safety plunge 
into the lake. With the wonderful instinct which these 
noble animals have so often displayed in the like circum- 
stances, he swam straight to the spot where his assistance 
was so much wanted, and, seizing the child’s underdress 
in his mouth, he not only kept him afloat, but towed him 
toward the causeway. The boat having put off with a 
couple of men, met the dog half-way, and relieved him of 
his burden. They landed on the causeway, close by the 
gates of the castle, with their yet lifeless charge, and were 
there met by the Ladv of Avenel, a,ttended by one or two 
of her maidens, eagerly waiting to administer assistance 
to the sufferer. • 

He was borne into the castle, deposited upon a bed, and 
every mode of recovery resorted to which the knowledge 
of the times, and the skill of Henry Warden, who professed 
some medical science, could dictate. For some time it 
was all in vain, and the Lady watched with unspeakable 
earnestness the pallid countenance of the beautiful child. 
He seemed about ten years old. His dress was of the 
meanest sort, but his long curled hair, and the noble cast 
of his features, partook not of that poverty of appearance. 
The proudest noble in Scotland might have been yet 
prouder could he have called that child his heir. While, 
with breathless anxiety, the Lady of Avenel gazed on his 
well-formed and expressive features, a slight shade of 
color returned gradually to the cheek ; suspended anima- 
^ tion became restored by degrees, the child sighed deeplv , 
opened his eyes, which to the human countenance pro- 
duces the effect of "^ght upon the natural landscape, 


2 


r/z/v ABFyO'r. 


i8 

stretched his arms toward the Lady, and muttered the 
word “ Mother,” that epithet, of all others, which is dear- 
est to the female ear. 

“God, madam,” said the preacher, “has restored the 
child to your wishes ; it must be yours so to bring him up, 
that he may not one day wish that he had perished in his 
innocence.” 

“It shall be my charge,” said the Lady; and again 
throwing her arms around the boy, she overwhelmed him 
with kisses and caresses, so much was she agitated by the 
terror arising from the danger in which he had been just 
placed, and by joy at his unexpected deliverance. 

^ “ But you are not my mother,” said the boy, recovering 
his recollection, and endeavoring, though faintly, to escape 
from the caresses of the Lady of Avenel ; “you are not 
my mother — alas ! I have no mother — only I have dreamt 
that I had one.” 

“I will read the dream for you, my love,” answered the 
Lady of Avenel ; “and 1 will be myself your mother. Surely 
God has heard my wishes, and, in his own marvellous 
manner, hath sent me an object on which my affections 
may expand themselves.” She looked toward’ Warden as 
she spoke. The preacher hesitated what he should reply 
to a burst of passionate feeling, which, perhaps, seemed to 
him more enthusiastic than the occasion demanded. In 
the meanwhile, the large staghoimd. Wolf, which, dripping 
wet as he Avas, had followed his mistress into the apart- 
ment, and had sat by the bedside, a patient and quiet spec- 
tator of all the means used for resuscitation of the being 
whom he had preserved, now became impatient of remain- 
ing any longer unnoticed, and began to whine and fawn 
upon the Lady with his great rough paws. 

“Yes,” she said, “good Wolf, and you shall be remem- 
bered also for your day’s work ; and I will think the more of 
you for having preserved the life of a creature so beauti- 
ful.” 

But Wolf was not quite satisfied with the share of atten- 
tion which he thus attracted ; he persisted in whining and 
pawing upon his mistress, his caresses rendered still more 
troublesome by liis long shaggv hair being so much and 
thoroughly wetted, till she desired one of the domestics, 
with whom he was familiar, to call the animal out of the 
apartment. Wolf resisted every invitation to this purpose 
until his mistress positively commanded him to be o-one’ 
in an angry tone ; when, turning toward the bed on which 


THE ABBOT. 


19 


the boy still lay, half awake to sensation, half drowned in 
the meanders of fluctuating delirium, he uttered a deep and 
savage growl, curled up his nose and lips, showed his full 
range of white and sharpened teeth, which might have 
matched those of an actual wolf, and then, turning round 
sullenly, followed the domestic out of the apartment. 

“It is singular,” said the Lady, addressing Warden ; 
“ the animal is not only so good-natured to all, but so par- 
ticularly fond of children. What can ail him at the little 
fellow whose life he has saved ? ” 

“Dogs,” replied the preacher, “are but too like the hu- 
man race in their foibles, though their instinct be less err- 
ing than the reason of poor mortal man when relying upon 
his own unassisted powers. Jealousy, my good lad"y, is a 
passion not unknown to them, and they often evince it, 
not only with respect to the preferences which they see 
given by their masters to individuals of their own species, 
but even when their rivals are children. You have caressed 
that child much and eagerly, and the dog considers him- 
self as a discarded favorite.” 

, “ It is a strange instinct'” said the Lady ; “and from the 
gravity with which you mention it, my reverend friend, I 
would almost say that you supposed this singular jealousy 
of my favorite Wolf was not only well founded, but justi- 
fiable. But perhaps you speak in jest ? ” 

“ I seldom jest,” answered the preacher ; “ life was not 
lent to us to be expended in that idle mirth which resem- 
bles the crackling of thorns under the pot. I would only 
have you derive, if it so please you, this lesson from what 
I have said, that the best of our feelings, when indulged 
to excess, may give pain to others. There is but one in 
which we may indulge to the utmost limit of vehemence 
of which our bosom is capable, secure that excess cannot 
exist in the greatest intensity to which it can be ex- 
cited — I mean the love of our Maker.” 

“ Surely,” said the Lady of Avenel, “ we are commanded 
by the same authority to love our neighbor ? ” 

“ Ay, madam,” said Warden, “ but our love to God is to 
be unbounded — we are to love him with our whole heart, 
our whole soul, and our whole strength. The love which 
the precept commands us to bear to our neighbor has af- 
fixed to it a direct limit and qualification — we are to love 
our neighbor as ourself ; as it is elsewhere explained by 
the great commandment, that we must do unto him as we 
would that he should do unto us. Here there is a limit. 


20 


THE ABBOT. 


and a bound, even to the most praiseworthy of our affec- 
tions, so far as they are turned upon sublunary and terres- 
trial objects. We are to render to our neighbor, whatever 
be his rank or degree, that corresponding portion of affec- 
tion with which we could rationally expect we should our- 
selves be regarded by those standing in the same relation 
to us. Hence, neither husband nor wife, neither son nor 
daughter, neither friend nor relation, are lawfully to be 
made the objects of our idolatry. The Lord our God is a 
jealous God, and will not endure that we bestow on the 
creature that extremity of devotion which He who made 
us demands as his own share. I say to you. Lady, that 
even in the fairest, and purest, and most honorable feel- 
ings of our nature, there is that original taint of sin which 
ought to make us pause and hesitate, ere we indulge them 
to excess.” 

“ I understand not this, reverend sir,” said the Lady ; 
“ nor do I guess what I can have now said, or done, to draw 
down on me an admonition which has something a taste of 
reproof.” 

“ Lady,” said Warden, “ I crave your pardon, if I have 
urged aught beyond the limits of my duty. But consider, 
whether in the sacred promise to be not only a protectress, 
but a mother to this poor child, your purpose may meet 
the wishes of the noble knight your husband. The fond- 
ness which you have lavished on the unfortunate, and, I 
own, most lovely child, has met something like a reproof 
in the bearing of your household dog. Displease not your 
noble husband. Men, as well as animals, are jealous of 
the affections of those they love.” 

“ This is too much, reverend sir,” said the Lady of Ave- 
nel, greatly offended. “ You have been long our guest, 
and have received from the Knight of Avenel and myself 
that honor and regard which your character and profession 
so justly demand. But I am yet to learn that we have at 
a^y time authorized your interference in our family ar- 
rangements, or placed you as a judge of our conduct to- 
ward each other. I pray this may be forborne in future.” 

“ Lady,” replied the preacher, with the boldness peculiar 
to the clergy of his persuasion at that time, “ when you 
weary of my admonitions— when I see that my services are 
no longer acceptable to you, and the noble knight your 
husband, I shall know that my Master wills me no longer 
to abide here ; and, praying for a continuance of his bless- 
ings on your family, I will then, were the season the depth 


THE ABBOT, 


21 


of winter, and the hour midnight, walk out on yonder 
waste, and travel forth through these wild mountains, as 
lonely and unaided, though far more helpless, than when 
I first met your husband in the valley of Glendearg. But, 
while I remain here, I will not see you err from the true 
path, no, not a hair’s-breadth, without making the old man’s 
voice and remonstrance heard.” 

“ Nay, but,” said the Lady, who both loved and respected 
the good man, though sometimes a little offended at what 
slie conceived to be an exuberant degree of zeal, “we will 
not part this way, my good friend. Women are quick and 
hasty in their feelings ; but, believe me, my wishes and my 
purposes toward this child are such as both my husband 
and you will approve of.” The clergyman bowed, and re- 
treated to his own apartment. 


CHAPTER SECOND. 

How steadfastly he fix’d his eyes on me — 

His dark eyes shining through forgotten tears — 

Then stretch’d his little arms, and call’d me mother! 

What could I do ? I took the bantling home — 

I could not tell the imp he had no mother. 

Count Basil. 

When Warden had left the apartment, the Lady of Avenel 
gave way to the feelings of tenderness which the sight of 
the boy, his sudden danger, and his recent escape, had in- 
spired ; and, no longer awed by the sternness, as she deemed 
it, of the preacher, heaped with caresses the lovely and in- 
teresting child. He was now, in some measure, recovered 
from the consequences of his accident, and received pas- 
sively, though not without wonder, the tokens of kindness 
with which he was thus loaded. The face of the lady was 
strange to him, and her dress different and far more sump- 
tuous than any he remembered. But the boy was naturally 
of an undaunted temper ; and indeed children are generally 
acute physiognomists, and not only pleased by that which 
is beautiful in itself, but peculiarly quick in distinguishing 
and replying to the attentions of those who really love 
them. If they see a person in company, though a perfect 
stranger, who is by nature fond of children, the little imps 
seem to discover it by a sort of freemasonry, while the awk- 
ward attempts of those who makeadvances to them for the 


22 


THE ABBOT. 


purpose of recommending themselves to the parents, usu. 
ally fail in attracting their reciprocal attention. The little 
boy, therefore, appeared in some degree sensible of the 
lady’s caresses, and it was with difficulty she withdrew her- 
self from his pillow, to afford him leisure for necessary re- 
pose. 

“To whom belongs our little rescued varlet ?” was the 
first question which the Lady of Avenel put to her hand- 
maiden Lilias, when tliey had retired to the hall. 

“To an old woman in the hamlet,” said Lilias, “who is 
even now come so far as the porter’s lodge to inquire con- 
cerning his safety. Is it your pleasure that she be admit- 
ted?” 

“Is it my pleasure?” said the Lady of Avenel, echoing 
the question with a strong accent of displeasure and sur- 
prise ; “can you make any doubt of it ? What woman but 
must pity the agony of the mother, whose heart is throb- 
bing for the safety of a child so lovely ! ” 

“Nay, but, madam,” said Lilias, “this woman is too old 
to be the mother of the child ; I rather think she must be 
his grandmother, or some more distant relation.” 

“Be she who she will, Lilias,” replied the Lady, “she 
must have an aching heart while the safety of a creature 
so lovely is uncertain. Go instantly and bring her hither. 
Besides, I would willingly learn something concerning his 
birth.” 

Lilias left the hall, and presently afterward returned, 
ushering in a tall female very poorly dressed, yet with 
more pretension to decency and cleanliness than was usu- 
ally combined with such coarse garments. The Lady of 
Avenel knew her figure the instant she presented herself. 
It was the fashion of the family, that upon every Sabbath, 
and on two evenings in the week besides, Henry Warden 
preached or lectured in the chapel at the castle. The ex- 
tension of the Protestant faith was, upon principle, as well 
as in good policy, a primary object with the Knight of 
Avenel. The inhabitants of the village were therefore in- 
vited to attend upon the instructions of Henry Warden, 
and many of them were speedily won to the doctrine which 
their master and protector approved. These sermons, 
homilies, and lectures, had made a great impression on the 
mind of the Abbot Eustace, or Eustatius, and were a suf 
ficient spur to the severity and sharpness of his controversy 
with his old fellow-collegiate ; and, ere Queen Mary was 
dethroned, and while the Catholics still had considerabh^ 


THE ABBOT. 


23 


authority in the Border provinces, he more than once 
threatened to levy his vassals, and assail and level with the 
earth that stronghold of heresy the Castle of Avenel. But 
notwithstanding the Abbot’s impotent resentment, and 
notwithstanding also the disinclination of tlie country to 
favor the new religion, Henry Warden proceeded without 
remission in his labors, and made weekly converts from the 
faith of Rome to that of the reformed church. Amongst 
those who gave most earnest and constant attendance on 
his ministry, was the aged woman, whose form, tall, and 
otherwise too remarkable to be forgotten, the Lady had 
of late observed frequently as being conspicuous amongst 
the little audience. She had indeed more than once de- 
sired to know who that stately-looking woman was, whose 
appearance was so much above the poverty of her vest- 
ments. But the reply had always been, that she was an 
Englishwoman, who was tarrying for a season at the ham- 
let, and that no one knew more concerning her. She now 
asked her after her name and birth. 

“ Magdalen Graeme is my name,” said the woman ; “ I 
come of the Graemes of Heathergill, in Nicol Forest,* a 
people of ancient blood.” 

“And what make you,” continued the Lady, “so far 
distant from your home ?” 

“ I have no home,” said Magdalen Graeme ; “ it was burnt 
by your Border-riders — my husband and my son were 
slain — there is not a drop’s blood left in the veins of any 
one which is of kin to mine.” 

“ That is no uncommon fate in these wild times, and in 
this unsettled land,” said the Lady ; “ the English hands 
have been as deeply dyed in our blood as ever those of 
Scotsmen have been in yours.” 

“ You have right to say it. Lady,” answered Magdalen 
Graeme ; “for men tell of a time when this castle was not 
strong enough to save your fatlier’s life, or to afford your 
mother and her infant a place of refuge. And why ask ye 
me, then, wherefore I dwell not in mine own home, and 
with mine own people ? ” 

“ It was indeed an idle question,” answered the Lady, 
“ where misery so often makes wanderers ; but wherefore 
take refuge in a hostile country ?” 

“ My neighbors were Popish and mass-mongers,” said 

i old woman ; “ it has pleased Heaven to give me a 


*A district of Cumberland, lying close to the Scottish Border, 


24 


THE ABBOT. 


clearer sight of the gospel, and I have tarried here to enjoy 
the ministry of that worthy man, Henry Warden, who, to 
the piaise and comh^rt of many, teacheth the Evangel in 
truth and in sincerity.” ^ 

“Are you poor?” again demanded the Lady of Avenel. 
“You hear me ask alms of no one,” answered the Eno-. 
lishwoman. ^ 


Here there was a pause. The manner of the woman 
was, if not disrespectful, at least much less than gracious; 
and she appeared to give no encouragement to farther 
communication. The Lady of Avenel renewed the con- 
versation on a different topic. 

“You have heard of the danger in which your boy has 
been placed ? ” 

“ 1 have. Lady, and how by an especial providence he 
was rescued from death. May Heaven make him thank- 
ful, and me ! ” 

“ What relation do you bear to him ? ” 

“ I am his grandmother. Lady, if it so please you ; the 
only relation he hath left upon earth to take charo'e of 
him.” ^ 

“ The burden of his maintenance must necessarily be 
grievous to you in your deserted situation?” pursued the 
Lady. 

“I have complained of it to no one,” said Magdalen 
Graeme, with the same unmoved, dry and unconcerned 
tone of voice in which she had answered all the former 
questions. 

“If, said the Lady of Avenel, “your grandchild could 
be received into a noble family, would it not advantag-e 
both him and you ? ” ^ 

“ Received into a noble family ! ” said the old woman 
drawing herself up, and bending her brows until her fore- 
head was wrinkled into a frown of unusual severity • “and 
for what purpose, I pray you ?— to be my lady’s page or 
my lord’s Jackman, to eat broken victuals, and contend 
with other menials for the remnants of the master’s meal ? 
Would you have him to fan the flies from my lady’s face 
while she sleeps, to carry her train while she walks, to hand 
her trencher when she feeds, to ride before her on horse- 
back, to walk after her on foot, to sing when she lists, and 
to be silent when she bids ?— a very weather-cock, which 
though furnished in appearance with wings and plumage 
cannot soar into the air— cannot fly from the spot where it 
IS perched, but receives all its impulse, and performs al 


THE ABB07\ 


25 


its revolutions, obedient to the changeful breath of a vain 
woman? When the eagle of Helvellyn perches on the 
tower of' Lanercost, and turns and changes his place to 
show how the wind sits, Roland Graeme shall be what you 
would make him.” 

The woman spoke with a rapidity and vehemence which 
seemed to have in it a touch of insanity ; and a sudden 
sense of the danger to which the child must necessarily 
be exposed, in the charge of such a keeper, increased the 
Lady’s desire to keep, him in the castle if possible. 

“You mistake me, dame,” she said, addressing the old 
woman in a soothing manner ; “ I do not wish your boy to 
be in attendance on myself, but upon the good knight, my 
husband. Were he himself the son of a belted Earl, he 
could not better be trained to arms, and all that befits a 
gentleman, than by the instructions and discipline of Sir 
Halbert Glendinning.” 

“Ay,” answered the old woman, in the same style of 
bitter irony, “ I know the wages of that service — a curse 
when the corselet is not sufficiently brightened — a blow 
when the girth is not tightly drawn — to be beaten because 
the hounds aie at fault — to be reviled because the foray is 
unsuccessful — to stain his hands for the master’s bidding 
in the blood alike of beast and of man — to be a butcher of 
harmless deer, a murderer and defacer of God’s own im- 
age, not at his own pleasure, but at that of his lord — to live 
a brawling ruffian, and a common stabber — exposed to 
heat, to cold, to want of food, to all the privations of an 
anchoret, not for the love of God, but for the service of 
Satan — to die by the gibbet,, or in some obscure skirmish 
— to sleep out his brief life in carnal security, and to awake 
in the eternal fire, which is never quenched.” 

“Nay,” said the Lady of Avenel, “ but to such unhaK 
lowed course of life your grandson will not be here ex- 
posed. My husband is just and kind to those who live 
under his banner ; and you yourself well know, that youth 
have here a strict as well as a good preceptor in the per. 
son of our chaplain.” 

The old woman appeared to pause. 

“You have named,” she said, “the only circumstance 
which can move me. I must soon onward, the vision 
has said it — I must not tarry in the same spot — I must on 
— I must on, it is my weird. Swear, then, that you will 
protect the boy as if he were your own, until I return 
hither and claim him, and I will consent for a space to 


26 


THE ABBOT. 


part with him. But especially swear, he shall not lack the 
instruction of the godly man who hath placed the gospel- 
truth high above those idolatrous shavelings, the monks 
and friars.” 

“Be satisfied, dame,” said the Lady of Avenel ; “the 
boy shall have as much care as if he were born of my own 
blood. Will you see him now ? ” 

“No,” answered the old woman, sternly; “to part is 
enough. I go forth on my own mission. I will not soften 
my heart by useless tears and wailings, as one that is not 
called to a duty.” 

“ \yill you not accept of something to aid you in your 
pilgrimage ? ” said the Lady of Avenel, putting into her 
hands two crowns of the sun. The old woman flung them 
down on the table. 

“Am I of the race of Cain,” she said, “proud Lady, 
that you offer me gold in exchange for my own flesh and 
blood?” 

“ I had no such meaning,” said the Lady, gently ; “ nor 
am I the proud woman you term me. Alas ! my own 
fortunes might have taught me humility, even had it not 
been born with me.” 

The old woman seemed somewhat to relax her tone of 
severity. 

“You are of gentle blood,” she said, “else we had not 
parleyed thus long together. You are of gentle blood, 
and to such,” she added, drawing up her tall form as she 
spoke, “ pride is as graceful as is the plume upon the bon- 
net. But for these pieces of gold. Lady, you must needs 
resume them. I need not money. I am well provided ; 
and I may not care for myself, nor think how, or by whom,’ 

I shall be sustained. Farewell, and keep your word. 
Cause your gates to be opened, and your bridges to be 
lowered. I will set forward this very night. When I 
come again, I will demand from vou a strict account, for I 
have left with you the jewel of my life ! Sleep will visit 
me but in snatches, food will not refresh me, rest will not 
restore my strength, until I see Roland Graeme. Once 
more, farewell.” 

“ Make your obeisance, dame,” said Lilias to Magdalen 
Graeme, as she retired ; “ make your obeisance to her lady- 
ship, and thank her for her goodness, as is but fitting and 
right.” ^ 

The old woman turned short around on the officioi 
waiting-maid. “ Let her make her obeisance to me, tb- 


THE ABBOT, 


27 


and I will return it. Why should I bend to her ? — is it be- 
cause her kirtle is of silk, and mine of blue lockeram ? — 
Go to, my lady’s waiting- woman. Know that the rank of 
the man rates that of the wife, and that she who marries a 
churl’s son, were she a king’s daughter, is but a peasant’s 
bride.” 

Lilias was about to reply in great indignation, but her 
mistress imposed silence on her, and commanded that the 
old woman should be safely conducted to the mainland. 

“ Conduct her safe ! ” exclaimed the incensed waiting- 
woman, while Magdalen Gramme left the apartment ; “ I 
py, duck her in the loch, and then we will see whether she 
is witch or not, as everybody in the village of Lockside 
will say and swear. I marvel your ladyship could bear so 
long with her insolence.” But the commands of the Lady 
were obeyed, and the old dame, dismissed from the castle, 
was committed to her fortune. She kept her word, and 
did not long abide in that place, leaving the hamlet on the 
very night succeeding the interview, and wandering no one 
asked whither. The Lady of Avenel inquired under what 
circumstances she had appeared among them, but could 
only learn that she was believed to be the widow of some 
man of consequence among the Graemes, who then inhab- 
ited the Debatable Land, a name given to a certain por- 
tion of territory which was ihe frequent subject of dispute 
betwixt Scotland and England — that she had suffered great 
wrong in some of the frequent forays by which that un- 
fortunate district was wasted, and had been driven from 
her dwelling-place. She had arrived in the hamlet no one 
knew for what purpose, and was held by some to be a 
witch, by others a zealous Protestant, and by others again 
a Catholic devotee. Her language was mysterious, and 
her manners repulsive ; and all that could be collected 
from her conversation seemed to imply that she was under 
the influence either of a spell or of a vow — there was no 
saying which, since she talked as one who acted under a 
powerful and external agency. 

Such were the particulars which the Lady’s inquiries 
were able to collect concerning Magdalen Grreme, being 
far too meagre and contradictory to authorize any satisfac- 
tory deduction. In truth, the miseries of the time, and the 
various turns of fate incidental to a frontier country, were 
perpetually chasing from their habitations those who had 
not the means of defence or protection. These wanderers 
in the land were too often seen to excite much attention or 


28 


THE ABBOT. 


sympathy. They received the cold relief which was ex- 
torted by general feelings of humanity ; a little excited in 
some breasts, and perhaps rather chilled in others, by the 
recollection that they who gave the charity to-day might 
themselves want it to-morrow. Magdalen Gr?eme, there- 
fore, came and departed like a shadow from the neighbor- 
hood of Avenel Castle. 

The boy whom providence, as she thought, had thus 
strangely placed under her care, was at once established a 
favorite with the Lady of the Castle. How could it be 
otherwise ? He became the object of those affectionate 
feelings, which, finding formerly no object on which to ex- 
pand themselves, had increased the gloom of the castle, 
and imbittered the solitude of its mistress. To teach him 
reading and writing as far as lier skill went, to attend to 
his childish comforts, to watch his boyish sports, became 
the Lady’s favorite amusement. In her circumstances, 
where the ear only heard the lowing of the cattle from the 
distant hills, or the heavy step of the warder as he walked 
upon his post, or the half-envied laugh of her maiden as 
she turned her wheel, the appearance of the blooming and 
beautiful boy gave an interest which can hardly be con- 
ceived by those who live amid gayer or busier scenes. 
Young Roland was to the Lady of Avenel what the flower, 
which occupies the window of some solitary captive, is to 
the poor wight by whom it is nursed and cultivated — some- 
thing which at once excited and repaid her care ; and in 
giving the boy her affection, she felt, as it were, grateful to 
him for releasing her from the state of dull apathy in which 
she. had usually found herself during the absence of Sir 
Halbert Glendinning. 

But even the charms of this blooming favorite were 
unable to chase the recurring apprehensions which arose 
from her husband’s procrastinated return. Soon after Ro- 
land Grteme became a resident at the castle, a groom, 
despatched by Sir Halbert, brought tidings that business 
still delayed the Knight at the Court of Holyrood. The 
more distant period which the messenger had assigned for 
his master’s arrival at length glided away, summer melted 
into autumn, and autumn was about to give place to win- 
ter, and yet he came not. 


THE ABBOT, 


29 


CHAPTER THIRD. 


The waning harvest-moon shone broad and bright, 

The warder’s horn was heard at dead of night, 

And while the folding portals wide were flung, 

With trampling hoofs the rocky pavement rung. 

Leyden. 

‘^And you, too, would be a soldier, Roland?” said the 
Lady of Avenel to her young charge, while, seated on a 
stone chair at one end of the battlements, she saw the boy 
attempt, with a long stick, to mimic the motions of the 
warder, as he alternately shouldered, or ported, or sloped 
pike. 

“Yes, Lady,” said the boy— for he was now familiar, and 
replied to her questions with readiness and alacrity — “a 
soldier will I be ; for there ne’er was gentleman but who 
belted him with the brand.” 

“ Thou a gentleman ! ” said Lilias, who, as usual, was in 
attendance; “such a gentleman as I would make of a 
bean-cod with a rusty knife.” 

“Nay, chide him not, Lilias,” said the Lady of Avenel, 
“for, beshrew me, but I think he comes of gentle blood — 
see how it musters in his face at your injurious reproof.” 

“Had I my will, madam,” answered Lilias, “a good 
birchen wand should make his color muster to better pur- 
pose still.” 

“On my word, Lilias,” said the Lady, “one would think 
you had received harm from the poor boy — or is he so far 
on the frosty side of your favor because he enjoys the 
sunny side of mine ?” 

“Over heavens forbode, my Lady ! ” answered Lilias ; “ I 
have lived too long with gentles, I praise my stars for it, 
to fight with either follies or fantasies, whether they relate 
to bea'St, bird, or boy.” 

Lilias was a favorite in her own class, a spoiled domestic, 
and often accustomed to take more license than her mis- 
tress was at all times willing to encourage. But what did 
not please the Lady of Avenel, she did not choose to hear, 
and thus it was on the present occasion. She resolved to 
look more close and sharply after the boy, who had hitherto 
been committed chiefly to the management of Lilias. Ha 


THE ABBOT. 


30 

must, she thought, be born of gentle blood ; it were shame 
to think otherwise of a form so noble, and features so fair ; 
the very wildness in which he occasionally indulged, his 
contempt of danger, and impatience of restraint, had in 
them something noble ; assuredly the child was born of 
high rank. Such was her conclusion, and she acted upon 
it accordingly. The domestics around her, less jealous, 
or less scrupulous, than Lilias, acted as serv’ants usually do, 
following the bias, and flattering, for their own purposes, 
the humor of the Lady ; and the boy soon took on him 
those airs of superiority which the sight of habitual defer- 
ence seldom fails to inspire. It seemed, in truth, as if to 
command were his natural sphere, so easily did he use 
himself to exact and receive compliance with his humors. 
The chaplain, indeed, might have interposed to check the 
air of assumption which Roland Graeme so readily indulged, 
and most probably would have willingly rendered him that 
favor ; but the necessity of adjusting with his brethren 
some disputed points of church discipline had withdrawn 
him for some time from the castle, and detained him in a 
distant part of the kingdom. 

Matters stood thus in the castle of Avenel, when a winded 
bugle sent its shrill and prolonged notes from the shore of 
the lake, and was replied to cheerily by the signal of the 
warder. The Lady of Avenel knew the sounds of her 
husband, and rushed to the window of the apartment in 
which she was sitting. A band of about thirty spearmen, 
with a pennon displayed before them, winded along the 
indented shores of the lake, and approached the causeway. 
A single horseman road at the head of the party, his bright 
arms catching a glance of the October sun as he moved 
steadily along. Even at that distance, the Lady recognized 
the lofty plume, bearing the mingled colors of her own 
liveries and those of Glendonwyne, blended with the holly- 
branch ; and the firm seat and dignified demeanor of the 
rider, joined to the steady motion of tiie dark-brown steed, 
sufficiently announced Halbert Glendinning. 

The Lady’s first thought was that of rapturous joy at 
her husband’s return — her second was connected with a 
fear which had sometimes intruded itself, that he might 
not altogether approve the peculiar distinction with which 
she had treated her orphan ward. In this fear there was 
implied a consciousness, that the favor she had shown him 
was excessive ; for Halbert Glendinning was at least 
gentle and indulgent as he was firm and ration 


THE ABBOT. 


31 


intercourse of his household ; and to her, in particular, his 
conduct had ever bden most affectionately tender. 

Yet she did fear, that, on the present occasion, her con- 
duct might incur Sir Halbert’s censure ; and hastily resolv- 
ing that she would not mention the anecdote of the boy 
until the next day, she ordered him to be withdrawn from 
the apartment by Lilias. 

“ I will not go with Lilias, madam,” answered the spoiled 
child, who had more than once carried his point by perse- 
verance, and who, like his betters, delighted in the exercise 
of such authority — “ I will not go to Lilias’s gousty room 
— I will stay and see that brave warrior, who comes riding 
so gallantly along the drawbridge.” 

“ You must not stay, Roland,” said the Lady, more posi- 
tively than she usually spoke to her little favorite. 

“ I will,” reiterated the boy, who had already felt his 
consequence, and the probable chance of success. 

“ You ze////, Roland !” answered the Lady, “what manner 
of word is that ? I tell you, you must go.” 

“ Will" answered the forward boy, “ is a word fora man, 
and must is no word for a lady.” 

“You are saucy, sirrah,” said the Lady; “Lilias, take 
him with you instantly.” 

“I always thought,” said Lilias, smiling, as she seized 
the reluctant boy by the arm, “ that my young master must 
give place to my old one.” 

“And you, too, are malapert, mistress ! ” said the Lady ; 
“ hath the moon changed, that ye all of you thus forget 
yourselves ? ” 

Lilias made no reply, but led off the hoy, who, too proud 
to offer unavailing resistance, darted at his benefactress a 
glance, which intimated plainly how willingly he would 
have defied her authority, had he possessed the power to 
make good his point. 

The Lady of Avenel was vexed to find how much this 
trifling circumstance had discomposed her, at the moment 
when she ought naturally to have been entirely engrossed 
by her husband’s return. But we do not recover com- 
posure by the mere feeling that agitation is mistimed. 
The glow of displeasure had not left the Lady’s cheek, her 
ruffled deportment was not yet entirely composed, when 
her husband, unhelmeted, but still wearing the rest of his 
arms, entered the apartment. His appearance banished 
the thoughts of everything else ; she rushed to him, clasped 
his iron-sheathed frame in her arms, and kissed his martial 


32 


THE ABBOT. 


and manly face with an affection which was at once evident 
and sincere. The warrior returned her embrace and her 
caress with the same fondness ; for the time which had 
passed since their union had diminished its romantic ardor, 
perhaps, but it had rather increased its rational tenderness, 
and Sir Halbert Glendinning’s long and frequent absences 
from his castle had prevented affection from degenerating 
by habit into indifference. 

When the first eager greetings were paid and received, 
the Lady gazed fondly on her husband’s face as she re- 
marked, “You are altered. Halbert — you have ridden hard 
and far to-day, or you have been ill ? ” 

“I have been well, Mary,” answered the knight; “passing 
well have I been ; and a long ride is to me, thou well 
knowest, but a thing of constant custom. Those who are 
born noble may slumber out their lives within the walls of 
their castles and manor-houses ; but he who hath achieved 
nobility by his own deeds must ever be in the saddle, ro 
show that he merits his advancement.” 

While he spoke thus, the Lady gazed ^ondly on him, as 
if endeavoring to read his inmost soul ; for the tone in 
which he spoke was that of melancholy depression. 

Sir Halbert Glendinning was the same, yet a different 
person from what he had appeared in his early years. The 
fiery freedom of the aspiring youth had given place to the 
steady and stern composure of the approved soldier and 
skilful politician. There were deep traces of care on those 
noble features, over which each emotion used formerly to 
pass like light clouds across a summer sky. That sky was 
now, not perhaps clouded, but still and grave, like that of 
the sober autumn evening. The forehead was higher and 
more bare than in early youth, and the locks which still 
clustered thick and dark on the warrior’s head were worn 
away at the temples, not by age, but by the constant pres- 
sure of the steel cap, or helmet. His beard, according to 
the fashion of the time, grew short and thick, and was 
turned into moustaches on the upper lip, and peaked at 
the extremity. The cheek, weather-beaten and embrowned 
had lost the glow of youth, but showed the vigorous com' 
piexion of active and confirmed manhood. Halbert Glen- 
dinning was, in a word, a knight to ride at a king’s rio-ht 
hand, to bear his banner in war, and to be his counsellor 
in time of peace ; for his looks expressed the considerat'* 
firmness which can resolve wisely and dare boldly. St’ 
over these noble features there now spread an air of 


THE ABBOT 


33 


jection, of which, perhaps, the owner was not conscious, 
but which did not escape the observation of his anxious 
and affectionate partner. 

“ Something has happened, or is about to happen,” said 
the Lady of Avenel ; “ this sadness sits not on your brow 
without cause — misfortune, national or particular, must 
needs be at hand.” 

“ There is nothing new that I wot of,” said Halbert Glen- 
dinning; “but there is little of evil which can befall a 
kingdom, that may not be apprehended in this unhappy 
and divided realm.” 

“Nay, then,” said the Lady, “ I see there hath really 
been some fatal work on foot. My Lord of Murray has 
not so long detained you at Holyrood, save that he wanted 
your help in some weighty purpose.” 

“ I have not been at Holyrood, Mary,” answered the 
Knight ;“I have been several" weeks abroad.” 

“ Abroad ! and sent me no word ? ” replied the lady. 

“ What would the knowledge have availed, but to have 
rendered you unhappy, my love?” replied the knight; 
‘‘your thoughts would have converted the slightest breeze 
that curled your own lake into a tempest raging in the 
German ocean.” 

“And have you then really crossed the sea?” said the 
Lady, to whom the very idea of an element which she had 
never seen conveyed notions of terror and of wonder ; 
“really left your own native land, and trodden distant 
shores, where the Scottish tongue is unheard and un- 
known ? ” 

“Really, and really,” said the Knight, taking her hand 
in affectionate playfulness, “ I have done this marvellous 
deed — have rolled on the ocean for three days and three 
nights, with the deep green waves dashing by the side of 
my pillow, and but a thin plank to divide me from it.” 

“ Indeed, my Halbert,” said the Lady, “that was a tempt- 
ing of Divine Providence. I never bade you unbuckle the 
sword from your side, or lay the lance from your hand — I 
never bade you sit still when your honor called you to 
rise and ride ; but are not blade and spear dangers enough 
for one man’s life, and why would you trust rough waves 
and raging seas ?” 

“We have in Germany, and in the Low Countries, as 
they are called,” answered Glendinning, “men who are 
jnited with us in faith, and with wliom it is fitting we 
hould unite in alliance. To some of these I was despatched 
3 


34 


THE ABBOT. 


on business as important as it was secret. I went in safety, 
and I returned in security ; there is more danger to a man’s 
life betwixt this and Holyrood, than in all the seas that 
wash the lowlands of Holland.” 

“And the country, my Halbert, and the people,” said 
the Lady, “are they like our kindly Scots ? or what bear- 
ing have they to strangers ? ” 

“ They are a people, Mary, strong in their wealth, which 
renders all other nations weak, and weak in those arts of 
war by which other nations are strong.” 

“ I do not understand you,” said the Lady. 

“The Hollander and the Fleming, Mary, pour forth 
their spirit in trade, and not in war ; their wealth pur- 
chases them the arms of foreign soldiers, by whose aid 
they defend it. They erect dikes on the sea-shore to pro- 
tect the land which they have won, and they levy regiments 
of the stubborn Switzers and hardy Germans to protect 
the treasures which they have amassed. And thus they 
are strong in their weakness ; for the very wealth which 
tempts their masters to despoil them, arms stranglers in 
their behalf.” 

“The slothful hinds!” exclaimed Mary, thinking and 
feeling like a Scotswoman of the period ; “ have they hands, 
and fight not for the land which bore them ? They should 
be notched off at the elbow ! ” 

“Nay, that were but hard justice,” answered her hus- 
band ; “for their hands serve their country, though not in 
battle, like ours. Look at these barren hills, Mary, and at 
that deep winding vale by which the cattle are even now 
returning from their scanty browse. The hand of the in- 
dustrious Fleming would cover these mountains with wood, 
and raise corn where we now see a starved and scanty 
sward of heath and ling. It grieves me, Mary, when I look 
on that land, and think what benefit it might receive from 
such men as I have lately seen — men who seek not the 
idle fame derived from dead ancestors, or the bloody 
renown won in modern broils, but tread along the land, 
as preservers and improvers, not as tyrants and destroy- 
ers.” ^ 

“ These amendments would here be but a vain fancy, my 
Halbert,” answered the Lady of Avenel ; “ the trees would 
be burned by the English foemen, ere they ceased to b 
shrubs, and the grain that you raised would be gathered 
by tlie fiist neighbor that possessed more riders than ic 
low your train. Why should you repine at this ? The fat- 


rriE ABBOT, 


35 


that made you Scotsman by birth, gave you head, and 
heart, and hand, to uphold the name as it must needs be 
upheld.” 

“It gave me no name to uphold,” said Halbert, pacing 
the floor slowly; “my arm has been foremost in every 
strife — my voice has been heard in every council, nor have 
the wisest rebuked me. The crafty Lcthington, the deep 
and dark Morton, have held secret council with me, and 
Grange and Lindsay have owned, that in the field I did 
the devoir of a gallant knight — but let the emergence be 
passed when they need my head and hand, and they only 
know me as son of the obscure portioner of Glendearg.” 

This was a theme which the Lady always dreaded ; for 
the rank conferred on her husband, the favor in which he 
was held by the powerful Earl of INIurray, and the high 
talents by which he vindicated his right to that rank and 
that favor, were qualities Avhich rather increased than 
diminished the envy which was harbored against Sir Hal- 
bert Glendinning among a proud aristocracy, as a person 
originally of inferior and obscure birth, who had risen to 
his present eminence solely by his personal merit. The 
natural firmness of his mind did not enable him to despise 
the ideal advantages of a higher pedigree, which were held 
in such universal esteem by all with whom he conversed ; 
and so open are the noblest minds to jealous inconsisten- 
cies, that there were moments in which he felt mortified 
that his lady should possess those advantages of birth and 
high descent which he himself did not enjoy, and regretted 
that his importance as the proprietor of Avenel was quali- 
fied by his possessing it only as the husband of the heiress. 
He was not so unjust as to permit any unworthy feelings 
to retain permanent possession of his mind, but yet they 
recurred from time to time, and did not escape his lady’s 
anxious observation. 

“ Had we been blessed with children,” she was wont on 
such occasions to say to herself, “ had our blood been 
united in a son who might have joined my advantages of 
descent with my husband’s personal worth, these painful 
and irksome reflections had not disturbed our union even 
for a moment. But the existence of such an heir, in whom 
our affections, as well as our pretensions, might have cen- 
tred, has been denied to us.” 

With such mutual feelings it cannot be wondered that it 
gave the lady pain to hear her husband verging toward 
his topic of mutual discontent. On the present as on 


36 


7'HE ABBOT. 


other similar occasions, she endeavored to divert the 
knight’s thoughts from this painful channel. 

“ How can you,” she said, “suffer yourself to dwell upon 
things which profit nothing ? Have you indeed no name 
to uphold ? You, the good and the brave, the wise in 
council, and the strong in battle, have you not to support 
the reputation your own deeds have won, a reputation 
more honorable than mere ancestry can supply ? Good 
men love and honor you, the wicked fear, and die turbu- 
lent obey you ; and is it not necessary you should exert 
yourself to insure the endurance of that love, that honor, 
that wholesome fear, and that necessary obedience ?” 

As she thus spoke, the eye of her husband caught from 
hers courage and comfort, and it lighted as he took her 
hand and replied, “ It is most true, my Mary, and I deserve 
thy rebuke, who forget what I am, in repining because I 
am not what I cannot be. I am now what the most famed 
ancestors of those I envy were, the mean man raised into 
eminence by his own exertions ; and sure it is a boast as 
honorable to have those capacities which are necessary to 
the foundation of a family, as to be descended from one 
who possessed them some centuries before. The Hay of 
Luncarty, who bequeathed his bloody yoke to his lineage 
— the ‘dark gray man,’ who first founded the house of 
Douglas, had yet less of ancestry to boast than I have. 
For thou knowest, Mary, that my name derives itself from 
a line of ancient warriors, although my immediate fore- 
fathers preferred the humble station in which thou didst 
first find them ; and war and counsel are not less proper to 
the house of Glendonwyne, even in its most remote de- 
scendants, than to the proudest of their baronage.” * 

He strode across the hall as he spoke ; and the Lady 
smiled internally to observe how much his mind dwelt 
upon the prerogatives of birth, and endeavored to estab- 
lish his claims, however remote, to a share in them, at the 
very moment when he affected to hold them in contempt. 
It will be easily guessed, however, that she permitted no 
symptom to escape her that could show she was sensible 
of the weakness of her husband, a perspicacity which per- 
haps his proud spirit could not very easily have brooked. 

As he returned from the extremity of the hall, to which 
he had stalked while in the act of vindicating the title r 
the House of Glendonwyne in its most remote branches 


* Note B. Glendonwyne of Glendonwyne. 


THE ABBOT. 


37 


of aristocracy, “ Where,” he said, “is 
VVoll I have not seen him since my return, and 6e was 
usually the first to welcome my home-coming.” 

“ Wolf,” said the Lady, with a slight degree of embar- 
rassment, for which, perhaps, she would have found it dif- 
ficult to assign any reason even to herself, “ Wolf is chained 
up for the present. He has been surly to my page ” 

“Wolf chained up— and Wolf surlv to your page'” 
answered Sir Halbert Glendenning ; “ Wolf never was surly 
to any one ; and the chain will either break his spirit or 
re^er him savage— So ho, there— set Wolf free directly.” 

He was obeyed ; and the huge dog rushed into the hall, 
disturbing, by his unwieldy and boisterous gambols, the 
whole economy of reels, rocks, and distalfs, with which the 
rnaidens of the household "were employed when the arrival 
of their lord was a signal to them to withdraw, and extract- 
ing from Lilias, who was summoned to put them again in 
order, the natural observation, “That the laird’s pet was as 
troublesome as the lady’s page.” 

“ And who is this page, Mary ? ” said the Knight, his at- 
tention again called to the subject by the observation of 
the waiting-woman — “ Who is this page, whom every one 
seems to weigh in the balance with my old friend and 
favorite. Wolf? — When did you aspire to the dignity of 
keeping a page, or who is the boy ? ” 

“ I trust, my Halbert,” said the Lady, not without a blush, 
“you will not think your wife entitled to less attendance 
than other ladies of her quality ?” 

“ Nay, Dame Mary,” answered the Knight, “it is enough 
you desire such an attendant— Yet I have never loved to 
nurse such useless menials— a lady’s page— it may well 
suit the proud English dames to have a slender youth to 
bear their trains from bower to hall, fan them when they 
slumber, and touch the lute for them when they please to 
listen ; but our Scottish matrons were wont to be above 
such vanities, and our Scottish youth ought to be bred to 
the spear and the stirrup.” 

“Nay, but, my husband,” said the Lady, “I did but jest 
when I called this boy my page ; he is in sooth a little 
orphan whom saved from perishing in the lake, and 
whom I have since kept in the castle out of charity. Lilias, 
bring little Roland hither.” 

^ Roland entered accordingly, and, flying to the Lady’s 
side, took hold of the plaits of her gown, and then turned 
round, and gazed with an attention not unmingled with fear, 


38 


THE ABBOT. 


upon the stately form of the Knight. “ Roland,” said the 
Lady, “go kiss "the hand of the noble Knight, and ask him 
to be thy protector.” But Roland obeyed not, and, keep- 
ing his station, continued to gaze fixedly and timidly on 
Sir Halbert Glendinning. “ Go to the Knight, boy,” said 
the Lady ; “ what dost thou fear, child ? Go, kiss Sir Hal- 
bert’s hand.” 

“ I will kiss no hand save yours, Lady,” answered the 
boy. 

“ Nay, but do as you are commanded, child,” replied 
the Lady. “He is dashed by your presence,” she said, 
apologizing to her husband ; but is he not a handsome 
boy?” 

“ And so is Wolf,” said Sir Halbert, as he patted his 
huge four-footed favorite, “ a handsome dog ; but he has 
this double advantage over your new favorite, that he 
does what he is commanded, and hears not when he is 
praised.” 

“Nay, now you are displeased with me,” replied the 
Lady ; “ and yet why should you be so ? There is nothing 
wrong in relieving the distressed orphan, or in loving that 
which is in itself lovely and deserving of affection. But you 
liave seen Mr. Warden at Edinburgh, and he has set you 
against the poor boy.” 

“ My dear Mary,” answered her husband, “ Mr. Warden 
better knows his place than to presume to interfere either 
in your affairs or in mine. I neither blame your relieving 
this boy, nor your kindness for him. But, I think, consid- 
ering his birth and prospects, you ought not to treat him 
with injudicious fondness, which can only end in render- 
ing him unfit for the humble situation to which Heaven 
has designed him.” 

“Nay; but, my Halbert, do but look at the boy,” said 
the Lady, “ and see whether he has not the air of being 
intended by Heaven for something nobler than a mere 
peasant. May he not be designed, as others have been, to 
rise out of a humble situation into honor and eminence ? ” 

Thus far had she proceeded, when the consciousness 
that she was treading upon delicate ground at once oc- 
curred to her, and induced her to take the most natural, but 
the worst of all courses on such occasions, whether in con- 
versation or in an actual bog, namely, that of stopping 
suddenly short in the illustration which she had com- 
menced. Her brow crimsoned, and that of Sir Halbert 
Glendinning was slightly overcast. But it was only for an 


THR ABD07\ 


39 


instant ; for he was incapable of mistaking his lady’s 
meaning, or supposing that she meant intentional disre. 
spect to him. 

“ Be it as you please, my love,” he replied ; “ I owe you 
too much to contradict you in aught which may render 
your solitary mode of life more endurable. Make of this 
youth what you will, and you have my full authority for 
doing so. But remember he is your, charge, not mine— 
remember he hath limbs to do man’s service, a soul and a 
^tongue to w^orship God ; breed him, therefore, to be true 
‘to his country and to Heaven ; and for the rest, dispose of 
him as you list — it is, and shall rest, your own matter.” 

This conversation decided the fate of Roland Grseme, 
who from thenceforward was little noticed by the master 
of the mansion of Avenel, but indulged and favored by its 
mistress. 

This situation led to many important consequences, and, 
in truth, tended to bring forth the character of the youth 
in all its broad lights and deep shadows. As the Knight 
himself seemed tacitly to disclaim alike interest and con 
trol over the immediate favorite of his lady, young Roland 
was, by circumstances, exempted from the strict discipline 
to which, as the retainer of a Scottish man of rank, he 
would otherwise have been subjected, according to all the 
rigor of the age. But the steward, or master of the 
household — such was the proud title assumed by the head 
domestic of each petty baron — deemed it not advisable to 
interfere with the favorite of the Lady, and especially 
since she had brought the estate into the present family. 
Master Jasper Wingate was a man experienced, as he often 
boasted, in the ways of great families, and knew how to 
keep the steerage even when wind and tide chanced to be 
in contradiction. 

This prudent personage winked at much, and avoided 
giving opportunity for farther offence, by requesting little 
of Roland Graeme beyond the degree of attention which 
he was himself disposed to pay ; rightly conjecturing, that 
however lowly the place which the youth might hold in 
the favor of the Knight of Avenel, still to make an evil re- 
port of him would make an enemy of the Lady, without 
securing the favor of her husband. 

With these prudential considerations, and doubtless not 
without an eye to his own ease and convenience, he taught 
the boy as much, and only as much, as he chose to learn, 
readily admitting whatever apology it pleased his pupil to 


40 


THE ABBOT. 


allege in excuse for idleness or negligence. As the other 
persons in the castle, to whom such tasks were delegated, 
readily imitated the prudential conduct of the major-domo, 
there was little control used toward Roland Grseme, who, 
of course, learned no more than what a very active mind, 
and a total impatience of absolute idleness, led him to 
acquire upon his own account, and by dint of his own ex- 
ertions. The latter were especially earnest, when the 
Lady herself condescended to be his tutoress, or to examine 
his progress. 

It followed also from his quality as my Lady’s favorite, 
that Roland was viewed with no peculiar good-will by the 
followers of the Knight, many of whom, of the same age, 
and apparently similar origin, with the fortunate page, 
were subjected to severe observance of the ancient and 
rigorous discipline of a feudal retainer. To these Roland 
Graeme was of course an object of envy, and, in conse- 
quence, of dislike and detraction ; but the youth possessed 
qualities which it was impossible to depreciate. Pride, 
and a sense of early ambition, did for him what severity 
and constant instruction did for others. In truth, the 
youthful Roland displayed that early flexibility both of 
body and mind, which renders exercise, either mental or 
bodily, rather matter of sport than of study ; and it seemed 
as if he acquired accidentally, and by starts, those accom- 
plishments which earnest and constant instruction, en- 
forced by frequent reproof and occasional chastisement, 
had taught to others. Such military exercises, such les- 
sons of the period, as he found it agreeable or convenient 
to apply to, he learned so perfectly, as to confound those 
who were ignorant how often the want of constant applica- 
tion is compensated by vivacity of talent and ardent en- 
thusiasm. The lads, therefore, who were more regularly 
trained to arms, to horsemanship, and to other necessary 
exercises of the period, while they envied Roland Graeme 
the indulgence or negligence with which he seemed to be 
treated, had little to boast of their own superior acquire- 
ments ; a few hours, with the powerful exertion of a most 
energetic will, seemed to do for him more than the regular 
instruction of weeks could accomplish for others. 

Under these advantages, if indeed they were to be termed 
such, the character of young Roland began to develop 
itself. It was bold, peremptory, decisive and overbearing ; 
generous, if neither withstood nor contradicted ; vehe- 
ment and passionate if censured or opposed. He seemed to 


THE ABBOT. 


41 


consider himself as attached to no one, and responsible to 
no one, except his mistress, and even over her mind he had 
gradually acquired that species of ascendency which in- 
dulgence is so apt to occasion. And although the imme- 
diate followers and dependents of Sir Halbert Glendinning 
saw his ascendency with jealousy, and often took occasion 
to mortify his vanity, there wanted not those who w^ere 
willing to acquire the favor of the Lady of Avenel by 
humoring and taking part with the youth whom she pro- 
tected ; for although a favorite, as the poet assures us, has 
no friend, he seldom fails to have both followers and flat- 
terers. 

The partisans of Roland Graeme were chiefly to be found 
amongst the inhabitants of the little hamlet on the shore 
of the lake. ’ These villagers, who were sometimes tempted 
to compare their own situation with that of the immediate 
and constant followers of the Knight, who attended him 
on his frequent journeys to Edinburgh and elsewhere, de- 
lighted in considering and representing themselves as more 
properly the subjects of the Lady of Avenel than of her 
husband. It is true, her wisdom and affection on all occa- 
sions discountenanced the distinction which was here im- 
plied ; but the villagers persisted in thinking it must be 
agreeable to her to enjoy their peculiar and undivided 
homage, or at least in acting as if they thought so ; and 
one chief mode by which they evinced their sentiments, 
was by the respect they paid to young Roland Graeme, the 
favorite attendant of the descendant of their ancient lords. 
This was a mode of flattery too pleasing to encounter re- 
buke or censure ; and the opportunity which it afforded 
the youth to form, as it were, a party of his owm within 
the limits of the ancient barony of Avenel, added not a 
little to the audacity and decisive tone of a character which 
was by nature bold, impetuous, and incontrollable. 

Of the two members of the household who had mani- 
fested an early jealousy of Roland Graeme, the prejudices 
of Wolf were easily overcome ; and in process of time the 
noble dog slept with Bran, Luath, and the celebrated 
hounds of ancient days. But Mr. Warden, the chaplain, 
lived, and retained his dislike to the youth. That good 
man, single-minded and benevolent as he really was, en- 
tertained rather more than a reasonable idea of the respect 
due to him as a minister, and exacted from the inhabitants 
of the castle more deference than the haughty young 
page, proud of his mistress’s favor, and petulant from 


42 


THE ABBOT. 


youth and situation, was at all times willing to pay. His 
bold and free demeanor, his attachment to rich dress and 
decoration, his inaptitude to receive instruction, and his 
hardening himself against rebuke, were circumstances 
which induced the good old man, with more haste than 
charity, to set the forward page down as a vessel of wrath, 
and to presage that the youth nursed that pride and 
haughtiness of spirit which goes before ruin and destruc- 
tion. On the other hand, Roland evinced at times a marked 
dislike, and even something like contempt, of the chaplain. 
Most of the attendants and followers of Sir Halbert Glen- 
dinning entertained the same charitable thoughts as the 
Reveremd Mr. Warden ; but, while Roland was favored by 
their lady, and endured by their lord, they saw no policy 
in making their opinions public. 

Roland Graeme was sufficiently sensible of the unpleas- 
ant situation in w’hich he stood ; but in the haughtiness of 
his heart he retorted upon the other domestics the distant, 
cold, and sarcastic manner in which they treated him, as- 
sumed an air of superiority wffiich compelled the most ob- 
stinate to obedience, and had the satisfaction at least to be 
dreaded, if he was heartily hated. 

The chaplain’s marked dislike had the effect of recom- 
mending him to the attention of Sir Halbert’s brother, 
Edw^ard, who now, under the conventual appellation of 
Father Ambrose, continued to be one of the few monks 
who, with the Abbot Eustatius, had, notwithstanding the 
nearly total downfall of their faith under the regency of 
Murray, been still permitted to linger in the cloisters at 
Kennaquhair. Respect to Sir Halbert had prevented their 
being altogether driven out of the Abbey, though their 
order w’as now in a great measure suppressed, and they 
were interdicted the public exercise of their ritual, and 
only allowed for their support a small pension out of their 
once splendid revenues. Father Ambrose, thus situated, 
was an occasional, though very rare visitant, at the Castle 
of Avenel, and was at such times observed to pay particu- 
lar attention to Roland Graeme, who seemed to return it with 
more depth of feeling than consisted with his usual habits. 

Thus situated, years glided on, during which the Knight 
of Avenel continued to act a frequent and important part 
in the convulsions of his distracted country ; while young 
Graeme anticipated, both in wishes and personal accom- 
plishments, the age which should enable him to emerge 
from the obscurity of his present situation. 


THE ABBOT. 


43 


CHAPTER FOURTH. 

Amid their cups that freely flow’d 
Their revelry and mirth, 

A youthful lord tax’d Valentine 
With base and doubtful birth. 

Valentine and Orson. 

• 

When Roland Graeme was a youth about seventeen years 
of age, he chanced one summer morning to descend to the 
mew in which Sir Halbert Glendinning kept his hawks, in 
order to superintend the training of an eyas, or young 
hawk, which he himself, at the imminent risk of neck and 
limbs, had taken from a celebrated eyry in the neighbor- 
hood, called Gledscraig. As he was by no means satisfied 
with the attention which had been bestowed on his favorite 
bird, he was not slack in testifying his displeasure to the 
falconer’s lad, whose duty it was to have attended upon it. 

“ What, ho ! sir knave,” exclaimed Roland, “ is it thus 
you feed the eyas with unwashed meat, as if you were gorg- 
ing the foul brancher of a worthless hoodie-crow ? bv the 
mass, and thou hast neglected its castings also for these 
two days? Think’st thou I ventured my neck to bring the 
bird down from the crag that thou shouldst spoil him by 
thy neglect ?” And to add force to his remonstrances, he 
conferred a cuff or two on the negligent attendant of the 
hawks, who, shouting rather louder than was necessary 
under all the circumstances, brought the master falconer 
to his assistance. 

Adam Woodcock, the falconer of Avenel, was an Eng- 
lishman by birth, but so long in the service of Glendinning 
that he had lost much of his national attachment in that 
which he had formed to his master. He was a favorite in 
his department, jealous and conceited of his skill, as masters 
of the game usually are ; for the rest of his character he 
was a jester and parcel poet (qualities which by no means 
abated his natural conceit), a jolly fellow, who, though a 
sound Protestant, loved a flagon of ale better than a long 
sermon, a stout man of his hands when need required, true 
to his master, and a little presuming on his interest with 
him. 

Adam Woodcock, such as we have described him, by no 
means relished the freedom used by young Graeme in chas- 


44 


THE ABBOT. 


tising his assistant. “ Hey, hey, my Lady’s page,” said he, 
stepping between his own boy and Roland, “fair and soft- 
ly, an it like your gilt jacket — hands off is fair play— if 
my boy has done amiss, I can beat him myself, and then 
3"ou may keep your hands soft.” 

“ I will beat him, and thee too,” answered Roland, with- 
out hesitation, “ an you look not better after your business. 
See how the bird is cast away between you. I found the 
careless lurdane feeding her with unwashed flesh, and she 
an eyas.” * 

“Go to,” said the falconer, “thou art but an eyas thy- 
self, child Roland. What k nowest thou of feeding ? I say 
that the eyas should have her meat unwashed until she be- 
comes a brancher — ’twere the ready way to give her the 
frounce, to wash her meat sooner, and so knows every one 
who knows a gled from a falcon.” 

“ It is thine own laziness, thou false English blood, that 
dost do nothing but drink and sleep,” retorted the page, 
“ and leaves that lither lad to do the work, which he minds 
as little as thou.” 

“ And am I so idle then,” said the falconer, “ that have 
three cast of hawks to look after, at perch and mew, and to 
fly them in the field to boot? — and is my Lady’s page so 
busy a man that he must take me up short ? — and am I of 
false English blood ? — I marvel what blood thou art — 
neither Englander nor Scot — fish nor flesh — a bastard from 
the Debatable Land, without either kith, kin, or ally ! — 
Marry, out upon thee, foul kite, that would fain be a tercel 
gentle ! ” 

The reply to this sarcasm was a box on the ear, so well 
applied, that it overthrew the falconer into the cistern in 
which water was kept for the benefit of the hawks. Up 
started Adam Woodcock, his wrath no way appeased by 
the cold immersion, and, seizing on a truncheon which 
stood by, would have soon requited the injury he had re- 
ceived, had not Roland laid his hand on his poniard, and 
sworn by all that was sacred, that if he offered a stroke 
toward him, he would sheathe the blade in his bowels. The 
noise was now so great that more than one of the house- 
hold came in, and amongst others the major-domo, a grave 
personage, already mentioned, whose gold chain and white 
wand intimated his authority. At the appearance of this 

* There is a difference amongst authorities how long the nestling hawk 
should be fed with flesh which has previously been washed, 


THE ABBOT. 


45 


dignitary, the strife was for the present appeased. He 
embraced, however, so favorable an opportunity to read 
Roland Graeme a shrewd lecture on the impropriety of his 
deportment to his fellow-menials, and to assure him, that, 
should he communicate this fray to his master (who, though 
now on one of his frequent expeditions, was speedily ex- 
pected to return), which but for respect to liis Lady he 
would most certainly do, the residence of the culprit in the 
Castle of Avenel would be but of brief duration. “ But, 
however,” added the prudent master of the household, “ I 
will report the matter first to my Lady.” 

“Very just, very right. Master Wingate,” exclaimed sev- 
eral voices together ; “ my Lady will consider if daggers 
are to be drawn on us for every idle word, and whether we 
are to live in a well-ordered household, where there is the 
fear of God, or amongst drawn dirks and sharp knives.” 

The object of this general resentment darted an angry 
glance around him, and suppressing with difficulty the 
desire which urged him to reply in furious or in contempt- 
uous language, returned his dagger into the scabbard, 
looked disdainfully around upon the assembled menials, 
turned short upon his heel, and, pushing aside those who 
stood betwixt him and the door, left the apartment. 

“This will be no tree for my nest,” said the falconer, “if 
this cock-sparrow is to crow over us as he seems to do.” 

“ He struck me with his switch yesterday,” said one of 
the grooms, “because the tail of his worship’s gelding was 
not trimmed altogether so as suited his humor.” 

“And I promise you,” said the laundress, “my young • 
master will stick nothing to call an honest woman slut and 
quean, if there be but a speck of soot upon his band-collar.” 

“ If Master Wingate do not his errand to my Lady,” was 
the general result, “ there will be no tarrying in the same 
house with Roland Graeme.” 

The master of the household heard them all for some 
time, and then, motioning for universal silence, he ad- 
dressed them with all the dignity of Malvolio himself : 
“My masters — not forgetting you, my mistresses — do not 
think the worse of me that I proceed with as much care as 
haste in this matter. Our master is a gallant knight, and 
will have his sway at home and abroad, in wood and field, 
in hall and bower, as the saying is. Our Lady, my benison 
upon her, is also a noble person of long descent, and right- 
ful heir of this place and barony, and slie also loves her 
will ; as for that matter, show me tlie woman who doth 


46 


THE ABBOT, 


not. Now, she hath favored, doth favor, and will favor, 
this jackanape — for what good part about him I know not, 
save that as one noble lady will love a messan dog, and 
another a screaming popinjay, and a third a Barbary ape, 
so doth it please our noble dame to set her aifections upon 
this stray elf of a page, for nought that I can think of, 
save that she was the cause of his being saved (the more’s 
the pity) from drowning.” And here Master Wingate made 
a pause. 

“ I would have been his caution fora gray groat against 
salt water or fresh,” said Roland’s adversary, the falconer; 
“ marry, if he crack not a rope for stabbing or for snatch- 
ing, I will be content never to hood hawk again.” 

“ Peace, Adam Woodcock,” said Wingate, waving his 
hand ; “ I prithee, peace, man — Now, my Lady liking this 
springald, as aforesaid, differs therein from my Lord, who 
loves never a bone in his skin. Now, is it for me to stir up 
strife betwixt them, and put as ’twere my finger betwixt 
the bark and the tree, on account of a pragmatical young- 
ster, whom, nevertheless, I would willingly see whipped 
forth of the barony ? Have patience, and this boil will 
break without our meddling. I have been in service ^ince 
I wore a beard on my chin, till now that that beard is 
turned gray, and I have seldom known any one better 
themselves, even by taking the lady’s part against the 
lord’s ; but never one who did not dirk himself if he took 
the lord’s against the lady’s.” 

“ And so,” said Lilias, “ we are to be crowed over, every 
one of us, men and women, cock and hen, by this little 
upstart ? I will try titles with him first, I promise you. I 
fancy. Master Wingate, for as wise as you look, you will 
be pleased to tell what you have seen to-day, if my lady 
commands you ? ” 

“To speak the truth when my lady commands me,” an- 
swered the prudential major-domo, “is in some measure 
my duty. Mistress Lilias ; always providing for and except- 
ing those cases in which it cannot be spoken without breed- 
ing mischief and inconvenience to myself or my fellow- 
servants ; for the tongue of a tale-bearer breaketh bones 
as well as a Jeddart-staff.” * 

“ But this imp of Satan is none of your friends or fellow- 

* A species of battle-axe, so called as being in especial use in that an- 
cient burgh, whose armorial bearings still represent an armed horseman 
brandishing such a weapon. 


7' HE ABBOT. 


47 


servants,” said Lilias ; “ and I trust you mean not to stand 
up for him against the whole family^ besides ?” 

“ Credit me, Mistress Lilias,” replied the senior, “should 
I see the time fitting, I would with right good-will give him 
a lick with the rough side of my tongue,” 

“ Enough said. Master Wingate,” answered Lilias ; “then 
trust me his song shall soon be laid. If my mistress does 
not ask me what is the matter below stairs before she be 
ten minutes of time older, she is no born woman, and my 
name is not Lilias Bradbourne.” 

In pursuance of her plan. Mistress Lilias failed not to 
present herself before her mistress with all the exterior of 
one who is possessed of an important secret — that is, she 
had the corners of her mouth turned down, her eyes raised 
up, her lips pressed as fast together as if they had been 
sewed up, to prevent her blabbing, and an air of prim 
mystical importance diffused over her whole person and 
demeanor, which seemed to intimate, “ I know something 
which I am resolved not to tell you ! ” 

Lilias had rightly read her mistress’s temper, who, wise 
and good as she was, was yet a daughter of grandame Eve, 
and could not witness this mysterious bearing on the part 
of her waiting-woman without longing to ascertain the 
secret cause. Fora space, Mrs. Lilias was obdurate to all 
inquiries, sighed, turned her eyes up higher yet to heaven, 
hoped for the best, but had nothing particular to commu- 
nicate. All this, as was most natural and proper, only 
stimulated the Lady’s curiosity ; neither was her importu- 
nity to be parried with — “ Thank God, I am no makebate 
— no tale-bearer — thank God, I never envied any one’s 
favor, or was anxious to propale their misdemeanor — only, 
thank God, there has been no bloodshed and murder in 
the house — that is all.” 

“ Bloodshed and murder ! ” exclaimed the Lady, “ what 
does the quean mean ? — if you speak not plain out, you 
shall have something you will scarce be thankful for.” 

“Nay, my Lady,” answered Lilias, eager to disburden 
her mind, or, in Chaucer’s phrase, to “ unbuckle her mail,” 
“ if you bid me speak out the truth, you must not be moved 
with what might displease you — Roland Graeme has dirked 
Adam Woodcock — that’s all.” 

“ Good Heaven !” said the Lady, turning pale as ashes, 
“ is the man slain ? ” 

“ No, madam,” replied Lilias, “ but slain he would have 
been, if there had not been ready help ; but maybe, it is 


48 


77 /A' ABBOT. 


your Ladyship’s pleasure tliat this young esquire shall 
poniard the servants as well as switch and baton them.” 

“Go to, minion,” said the Lady, “you are saucy — tell 
the master of the household to attend me instantly.” 

Lilias hastened to seek out Mr. Wingate, and hurry him 
to his lady’s presence, speaking as a word in season to him 
on the way, “ I have set the stone a-trowling, look that 
you do not let it stand still.” 

The steward, too prudential a person to commit himself 
otherwise, answered by a sly look and a nod of intelli- 
gence, and presently after stood in the presence of the 
Lady of Avenel, wuth a look of great respect for his lady, 
partly real, partly affected, and an air of great sagacity, 
which inferred no ordinary conceit of himself. 

“ How is this, Wingate,” said the Lady, “ and what rule 
do you keep in the castle, that the domestics of Sir Halbert 
Glendinning draw the dagger on each other, as in a cavern 
of thieves and murderers ? — is the wounded man much 
hurt ? and what — what hath become of the unhappy boy ? ” 

“There is no one wounded as yet, madam,” replied he 
of the golden chain ; “it passes my poor skill to say how 
many maybe wounded before Pasche * if some rule be not 
taken with this youth — not but the youth is a fair youth,” 
he added, correcting himself, “and able at his exercise ; 
but somewhat too ready with the ends of his fingers, the 
butt of his riding-switch, and the point of his dagger.” 

“And whose fault is that,” said the Lady, “but yours, 
who should have taught him better discipline, than to brawd 
or to draw his dagger ? ” 

“ If it please your Ladyship so to impose the blame on 
me,” answered the steward, “ it is my part, doubtless, to 
bear it— only I submit to your consideration, that unless I 
nailed his weapon to the scabbard, I could no more keep 
it still, than I could fix quicksilver, which defied even the 
skill of Raymond Lullius.”t 

“ Tell me not of Raymond Lullius,” said the Lady, losing 
patience, “ but send me the chaplain hither. You grow all 
of you too wise for me, during your lord’s long and re- 
peated absences. I would to God his affairs would permit 

* Easter. 

f [Raymond Lully, surnamed Doctor Illummatus, a native of Majorca, 
was born in 1236, and died 1315 in the eightieth year of his age. His 
latest_ work, Arbor Scicntia, is divided into sixteen parts, each of which 
contained a special science, forming a kind of encyclopsedia of the knowl- 
edge of the thirteenth century.] 


THE ABBOT. 


49 

him to remain at home and rule his own household, for it 
passes my wit and skill ! ” 

“God forbid, my Lady!” said the old domestic, “that 
you should sincerely think what you are now pleased to 
say : your old servants might well hope, that after so many 
years’ duty, you would do their service more justice than 
to distrust their gray hairs, because they cannot rule the 
peevish humor of a green head, which the owner carries, 
it may be, a brace of inches higher than becomes him.” 

“Leave me,” said the Lady ; “ Sir Halbert’s return must 
now be expected daily, and he will look into these matters 
himself — leave me, I say, Wingate, without saying more of 
it. I know you are honest, and I believe the boy is petu- 
lant ; and yet I think it is my favor which hath set ail of 
you against him.” 

The steward jDowed and retired, after having been si- 
lenced in a second attempt to explain the motives on which 
he acted. 

The chaplain arrived ; but neither from him did the Lady 
receive much comfort. On the contrary, she found him 
disposed, in plain terms, to lay to the door of her indul- 
gence all the disturbances which the fiery temper of Roland 
Graeme had already occasioned, or might liereafter occa- 
sion, in the family. “ I would,” he said, “ honored Lady, 
that you had deigned to be ruled by me in the outset of 
this matter, sith it is easy to stem evil in the fountain, but 
hard to struggle against it in the stream. You, honored 
madam (a word which I do not use according to the vain 
forms of this world, but because I have ever loved and 
honored you as an honorable and an elect lady) — you, I 
say, madam, have been pleased, contrary to my poor but 
earnest counsel, to raise this boy from his station into one 
approaching to your own.” 

“What mean you, reverend sir?” said the Lady; “I 
have made this youth a page — is there aught in my doing 
so that does not become my character and quality ? ” 

“ I dispute not, madam,” said the pertinacious preacher, 
“your benevolent purpose in taking charge of this youth, 
or your title to give him this idle character of page, if such 
was your pleasure ; though what the education of a boy in 
the train of a female can tend to, save to engraft foppery 
and effeminacy on conceit and arrogance, it passes my 
knowledge to discover. But I blame you more directly 
for having taken little care to guard him against the perils 
of his condition, or to tame and humble a spirit naturally 
4 


THE ABBOT. 


SO 

haughty, overbearing, and impatient. You have brought 
into your bower a lion’s cub ; delighted with the beauty of 
his fur, and the grace of his gambols, you have bound him 
with no fetters befitting the fierceness of his disposition. 
Von have let him grow up as unawed as if he had been still 
a tenant of the forest, and now you are surprised, and call 
out for assistance, when he begins to ramp, rend, and tear, 
according to his proper nature.” 

“ Mr. Warden,” said the Lady, considerably offended, 
“you are my husband’s ancient friend,.and I believe your 
love sincere to him and to his household. Yet let me say, 
that when I asked you for counsel, 1 expected not this as- 
perity of rebuke. If I have done wrong in loving this 
poor orphan lad more than others of his ’class, I scarce 
think the error merited such severe censure ; and if stricter 
discipline were required to keep his fiery Jiemper in order, 
it ought, I think, to be considered, that I am a woman, and 
that if I have erred in this matter, it becomes a friend’s 
part rather to aid than to rebuke me. I would these evils 
were taken order with before my lord’s return. He loves 
not domestic discord or domestic brawls ; and I would not 
willingly that he thought such could arise from one whom 
I favored. What do you counsel me to do ? ” 

“ Dismiss this youth from your service, madam,” replied 
the preacher. 

“You cannot bid me do so,” said the Lady ; “you can- 
not, as a Christian and a man of humanity, bid me turn 
away an unprotected creature against whom my favor, my 
injudicious favor if you will, has reared up so many ene- 
mies.” 

“ It is not necessary you should altogether abandon him, 
though you dismiss him to another service, or to a calling 
better suiting his station and character,” said the preacher ; 
“ elsewhere he may be an useful and profitable member of 
the commonweal — here he is but a makebate, and a stum- 
bling-block of offence. The youth has snatches of sense 
and of intelligence, though he lacks industry. I will my- 
self give him letters commendatory to Olearius Schinder- 
hausen, a learned professor at the famous university of 
Leyden, where they lack an under-janitor — where besides 
gratis instruction, if God give him the grace to seek it, he 
will enjoy five merks by the year, and the professor’s cast- 
off suit, wdiich he disparts with biennially.” 

“This will never do, good Mr. Warden,” said the Lady, 
scarce able to suppress a smile ; “ we will think more at 


THE ABBOT. 


5r 

large upon this matter. In the meanwhile, I trust to your 
remonstrances with this wild boy and with the family, for 
restraining these violent and unseemly jealousies and 
bursts of passion ; and I entreat you to press on him and 
them their duty in this respect toward God, and toward 
their master.” 

“ You shall be obeyed, madam,” said Warden. “ On the 
next Thursday I exhort the family, and will, with God’s 
blessing, so wrestle with the demon of wrath and violence, 
which hath entered into my little flock, that I trust to hound 
the wolf out of the fold, as if he were chased away with 
ban-dogs.” 

This was the part of the conference from which Mr. 
Warden derived the greatest pleasure. The pulpit was at 
that time the same powerful engine for affecting popular 
feeling which the press has since become, and he had been 
no unsuccessful preacher, as we have already seen. It 
followed, as a natural consequence, that he rather over- 
estimated the powers of his own oratory, and, like some of 
his brethren about the period, was glad of an opportunity 
to handle any matters of importance, whether public or 
private, the discussion of which could be dragged into his 
discourse. In that rude age the delicacy was unknown 
which prescribed time and place to personal exhortations ; 
and as the court-preacher often addressed the King indi- 
vidually, and dictated to him the conduct he ought to 
observe in matters of state, so the nobleman him'self, or 
any of his retainers, were, in the chapel of the feudal castle, 
often incensed or appalled, as the case might be, by the 
discussion of their private faults in the evening exercise, 
and by spiritual censures directed against them, specifi- 
cally, personally, and by name. 

The sermon, by means of which Henry Warden purposed 
to restore concord and good order to the Castle of Avenel, 
bore for text the well-known words, '‘'‘He who striketh with 
the swor-d shall perish by the swordp and was a singular mixt- 
ure of good sense and powerful oratory with pedantry and 
bad taste. He enlarged a good deal on the word striketh, 
which he assured his hearers comprehended blows given 
with the point as well as with the edge, and more gen- 
erally, shooting with hand-gun, cross-bow, or long-bow, 
thrusting with a lance, or doing any thing whatever by 
which death might be occasioned to the adversary. In the 
same manner he proved satisfactorily, that the word sword 
comprehended all descriptions, whether back-sword or 


52 


THE ABB07\ 


basket-hilt, cut-and-thrust or rapier, falchion or cimeten 
“But if,” he continued, with still greater animation, “the 
text includeth in its anathema those who strike with any 
of those weapons which man hath devised for the exercise 
of his open hostility, still more doth it comprehend such 
as from tiieir form and size are devised rather for the 
gratification of privy malice by treachery, than for the de- 
struction of an enemy prepared and standing upon his 
defence. Such,” he proceeded, looking sternly at the 
place where the page was seated on a cushion at the feet 
of his mistress, and wearing in his crimson belt a gay dag- 
ger with a gilded hilt — “such, more especially, I hold to 
be those implements of death, which, in our modern and 
fantastic times, are worn not only by thieves and cut- 
throats, to whom they most properly belong, but even by 
those who attend upon women, and wait in the chambers 
of honorable ladies. Yes, my friends, — every species of 
this unhappy weapon, framed for all evil and for no good, 
is comprehended under this deadly denunciation, whether 
it be a stilet, which we have borrowed from the treacherous 
Italian, or a dirk, which is borne by the savage Highland- 
man, or a whinger, which is carried by our own Border- 
thieves and cut-throats, or a dudgeon-dagger, all are alike 
engines invented by the devil himself, for ready implements 
of deadly wrath, sudden to execute and difficult to be 
parried. Even the common sword-and-buckler brawler 
despises the use of such a treacherous and malignant in- 
strument, which is therefore fit to be used, not by men or 
soldiers, but by those who, trained under female discipline, 
oecome themselves effeminate hermaphrodites, having fe- 
male spite and female cowardice added to the infirmities 
and evil passions of their masculine nature.” 

The effect which this oration produced upon the as- 
sembled congregation of Avenel cannot very easily be 
described. The Lady seemed at once embarrassed and of- 
fended ; the menials could hardly contain, under an affecta- 
tion of deep attention, the joy Avith which they heard the 
chaplain launch his thunders at the head of the unpopular 
favorite, and the Aveapon Avhich they considered as a badge 
of affectation and finery. Mrs. Lilias crested and dreAv up 
her head Avith all the deep-felt pride of gratified resent- 
ment ; Avhile the steward, observing a strict neutrality of 
aspect, fixed his eyes upon an old scutcheon on the oppo- 
site side of the wall, Avhich he seemed to examine with the 
utmost accuracy, more Avilling, perhaps, to incur the cen- 


THE ABBOT. 


53 


sure of being inattentive to the sermon, than that of seem- 
ing to listen with marked approbation to what appeared 
so distasteful to his mistress. 

The unfortunate subject of the harangue, whom nature 
had endowed with passions which had hitherto found no 
effectual restraint, could not disguise the resentment which 
he felt at being thus directly held up to the scorn, as well 
as the censure, of the assembled inhabitants of the little 
world in which he lived. His brow grew red, his lip grew 
pale, he set his teeth, lie clenched hfs hand, and then with 
mechanical readiness grasped the- weapon of which the 
clergyman had given so hideous a character ; and at 
length, as the preacher heightened the coloring of his in- 
vective, he felt his rage become so ungovernable, that, 
fearful of being hurried into some deed of desperate vio- 
lence, he rose up, traversed the chapel with hasty steps, 
and left the congregation. 

The preacher was surprised into a sudden pause, while 
the fiery youth shot across him like a flash of lightning, 
regarding him as he passed, as if he had wished to dart 
from his eyes the same power of blighting and of consum- 
ing. But no sooner had he crossed the chapel, and shut 
with violence beliind him the door of the vaulted entrance 
by which it communicated with the castle, than the impro- 
priety of his conduct supplied Warden with one of those 
happier subjects for eloquence, of which he knew how to 
take advantage, for making a suitable impression on his 
hearers. He paused for an instant, and then pronounced, 
in a slow and solemn voice, the deep anathema : “He hath 
gone out from us because he was not of us — the sick man 
hath been offended at the wholesome bitter of the medi- 
cine — the wounded patient hath flinched from the friendly 
knife of the surgeon — the sheep hath fled from the sheep- 
fold and delivered himself to the wolf, because he could 
not assume the quiet and humble conduct demanded of 
us by the great Shepherd. Ah ! my brethren, beware of 
wrath — beware of pride — beware of the deadly and de- 
stroying sin which so often shows itself to our frail eyes in 
the garments of light ! What is our earthly honor ? Pride, 
and pride only — What our earthly gifts and graces? Pride 
and vanity. Voyagers speak of Indian men, who deck 
themselves with shells, and anoint themselves with pig- 
ments, and boast of their attire as we do of our miserable 
carnal advantages. Pride could draw down the morning- 
star from Heaven even to the verge of the pit — Pride and 


54 


THE ABBOT. 


self-opinion kindled the flaming sword which waves us off 
from Paradise — Pride made Adam mortal, and a weary 
wanderer on the face of the earth, which he had else been 
at this day the immortal lord of — Pride brought amongst 
us sin, and doubles every sin it has brought. It is the out- 
post which the devil and the flesh most stubbornly main- 
tain against the assaults of grace ; and until it be subdued, 
and its barriers levelled with the very earth, there is more 
hope of a fool than of the sinner. Rend, then, from your 
bosoms this accursed shoot of the fatal apple ; tear it up 
by the roots, though it be twisted with the chords of your 
life. Profit by the example of tlie miserable sinner that 
has passed from us, and embrace the means of grace while 
it is called to-day — ere your conscience is seared as with a 
fire-brand, and your ears deafened like those of the adder, 
and your heart hardened like the nether mill-stone. Up, 
then, and be doing — wrestle and overcome ; resist, and the 
enemy shall flee from you — Watch and pray, lest ye fall 
into temptation, and let the stumbling of others be your 
warning and your example. Above all, rely not on your- 
selves, for such self-confidence is even the worst symptom 
of the disorder itself. The Pharisee, perhaps, deemed 
himself humble while he stooped in tiie Temple, and 
thanked God that he was not as other men, and even as 
the publican. But while his knees touched the marble 
pavement, his head was as high as the topmost pinnacle 
of the Temple. Do not, therefore, deceive yourselves, and 
offer false coin, where the purest you can present is but as 
dross — -think not that such will pass the assay of Omnipo- 
tent Wisdom. Yet shrink not from the task, because, as 
is my bounden duty, I do not disguise from you its diffi- 
culties. Self-searching can do much — Meditation can do 
much — Grace can do all.” 

And he concluded with a touching and animating ex- 
hortation to his hearers to seek divine grace, which is per- 
fected in human weakness. 

The audience did not listen to this address without being 
considerably affected ; though it might be doubted whether 
the feelings of triumph, excited by the disgraceful retreat 
of the favorite page, did not greatly qualify in the minds 
of many the exhortations of the preacher to charity and 
to humility. And, in fact, the expression of their counte- 
nances rcuch resembled the satisfied triumphant air of a set 
of children, who, having just seen a companion punished for 
a fault in which they had no share, con their task with 


7' HE ABBOT. 


55 

double glee, both because they themselves are out of the 
scrape, and because the culprit is in it. 

With very different feelings did the Lady of Avenel seek 
her own apartment. She felt angry at Warden liaving made 
a domestic matter, in which she took a personal interest 
the subject of such public discussion. But this she knevv 
the good man claimed as a branch of his Christian liberty 
as a preacher, and also that it was vindicated by the univer- 
sal custom of his brethren. But the self-willed conduct of 
her protege afforded her yet deeper concern. That he had 
broken through in so remarkable a degree, not only the re- 
spect due to her presence, but that which was paid to relig- 
ious admonition in those days with such peculiar reverence, 
argued a spirit as untamable as his enemies had repre- 
•sented him to possess. And yet, so far as he had been 
under her own eye, she had seen no more of that fiery 
spirit than appeared to her to become his years and his vi- 
vacity. This opinion might be founded in some degree on 
partiality ; in some degree, too, it might be owing to the 
kindness and indulgence which she had always extended to 
him ; but still she thought it impossible that she could be 
totally mistaken in the estimate she had formed of his 
character. The extreme of violence is scarce consistent 
with a course of continued hypocrisy (although Lilias char- 
itably hinted, that in some instances they were happily 
unite.d), and therefore she could not exactly trust the report 
of others against her own experience and observation. The 
thoughts of this orphan boy clung to her heartstrings with 
a fondness for which she herself was unable to account. 
He seemed to have been sent to her by Heaven, to fill up 
those intervals of languor and vacuity which deprived her 
of much enjoyment. Perhaps he was not less dear to her, 
because she well saw that he was a favorite with no one 
else, and because she felt that to give him up was to afford 
the judgment of her husband and others a triumph over 
her own ; a circumstance not quite indifferent to the best 
of spouses of either sex. 

In short, the Lady of Avenel formed the internal resolu- 
tion, that she would not desert her page while her page 
could be rationally protected ; and, with the view of ascer- 
taining how far this might be done, she caused him to be 
summoned to her presence. 


56 


THE ABBOT. 


CHAPTER FIFTH. 

In the wild storm, 

The seaman hews his mast down, and the merchant 
Heaves to the billows wares he once deem’d precious ; 

So prince and peer, ’mid popular contentions, 

Cast off their favorites. Old Play. 

It was some time ere Roland Graeme appeared. The 
messenger (his old friend Lilias) had at first attempted to 
open the door of his little apartment with the charitable 
purpose, doubtless, of enjoying the confusion and mark- 
ing the demeanor of the culprit. But an oblong bit of 
iron, yclept a bolt, was passed across the door on the in- 
side, and prevented her benign intentions. Lilias knocked 
and called at intervals. “ Roland — Roland Graeme — Jlfas- 
ier Roland Graeme ” — (an emphasis on the word Master), 
“ will you be pleased to undo the door? — What ails you ? 
—are you at your prayers in private, to complete the de- 
votion which you left unfinished in public ? — Surely we 
must have a screened seat for you in the chapel, that your 
gentility may be free from the eyes of common folks!” 
Still no whisper was heard in reply. “ Well, Master Ro- 
land,^ said the waiting-maid, “ I must tell my mistress, 
that if she would have an answer, she must either come 
herself, or send those on errand to you who can beat the 
door down.” 

“ What says your Ladv ? ” answered the pag-e from 
within. ' ^ ^ 

Marry, open the door, and you shall hear,” answered 
the waiting-maid. “ I trow it becomes my Lady’s message 
to be listened to face to face ; and I will not, for your idle 
pleasure, whistle it through a key-hole.” 

^our mistress s name,” said the page, opening the 
door, “ is too fair a cover for your impertinence— What 
says my Lady ? ” 

•‘That you will be pleased to come to her directly, in 
the withdrawing-room,” answered Lilias. “ I presume 
she has some directions for you concerning the forms to 
be observed in leaving chapel in future.” 

Say to my Lady, that I will directly wait on her,” an- 
swered the page ; and returning into his apartment he 
once more locked the door in the face of the waiting- 
maid. ^ 


THE ABBOT. 


57 


“ Rare courtesy ! muttered Lilias ; and, returning to 
her mistress, acquainted her that Roland Graeme would 
wait on her when it suited his convenience. 

“ What ! is that his addition or your own phrase, 
Lilias ?” said the Lady, coolly. 

“Nay, madam,” replied the attendant, not directly an- 
swering the question, “ he looked as if he could have said 
much more impertinent things than that, if I had been 
willing to hear them. — But here he comes to answer for 
himself.” 

Roland Graeme entered the apartment with a loftier 
mien, and somewLat a higher color, than his w^ont ; there 
was embarrassment in his manner, but it was neither that 
of fear nor of penitence. 

“ Young man,” said the Lady, “ wLat trow you I am to 
think of your conduct this day ? ” 

“ If it has offended you, madam, I am deeply grieved,” 
replied the youth. 

“To have offended me alone,” replied the Lady, “were 
but little — You have been guilty of conduct w^hich will 
highly offend your master — of violence to your fellow- 
servants, and of disrespect to God himself, in the person 
of his ambassador.” 

“Permit me again to reply,” said the page, “that if I 
have offended my only mistress, friend, and benefactress, 
it includes the sum of my guilt, and deserves the sum of 
my penitence — Sir Halbert Glendinning calls me not 
servant, nor do I call him master — he is not entitled to 
blame me for chastising an inscTlent groom — nor do I fear 
the WTath of Heaven for treating wdth scorn the unau- 
thorized interference of a meddling preacher.” 

The Lady of Avenel had before this seen symptoms in 
her favorite of boyish petulance, and of impatience of cen- 
sure or reproof. But his present demeanor was of a 
graver and more determined character, and she "was for a 
moment at a loss how she should treat the youth, w’ho 
seemed to have at once assumed the character not only of 
a man, but of a bold and determined one. She paused an 
instant, and then assuming the dignity w^hich was natural 
to her, she said, “ Is it to me, Roland, that you hold this 
language ? Is it for the purpose of making me repent the 
favor I have showm you, that you declare yourself inde- 
pendent both of an earthly and a Heavenly master ? 
Have you forgotten what you w^ere, and to what the loss 
of my "protection would speedily again reduce you ?” 


58 


THE ABB07\ 


“Lady,” said the pa^e, “I have forgot nothing, I remem- 
ber but too much. I know that but for you I should have 
perished in yon blue waves,” pointing, as he spoke, to the 
lake, which was seen through the window, agitated by the 
western wind. “ Your goodness has gone farther, madam 
—you have protected me against the malice of others, and 
against my own folly. You are free, if you are willing, to 
abandon the orphan you have reared. You have left noth- 
ing undone by him, and he complains of nothing. And 
yet. Lady, do not think I have been ungrateful — I have 
endured something on my part, which I would have borne 
for the sake of no one but my benefactress.” 

“ For my sake ! ” said the Lady ; “and what is it that I 
can have subjected you to endure, which can be remembered 
with other feelings than those of thanks and gratitude ? ” 

“You are too just, madam, to require me to be thankful 
for the cold neglect with which your husband has uniform- 
ly treated me — neglect not un mingled with fixed aversion. 
You are too just, madam, to require me to be grateful for 
the constant and unceasing marks of scorn and malevolence 
with which I have been treated by others, or for such a 
homily as that with which your reverend chaplain has, at 
my expense, this very day regaled the assembled house- 
hold.” 

“ Heard mortal ears the like of this ! ” said the waiting- 
maid, with her hands expanded and her eyes turned up to 
heaven ; “ he speaks as if he were son of an earl, or of a 
belted knight the least penny ! ” 

The page glanced on her a look of supreme contempt, 
but vouchsafed no other answer. His mistress, who began 
to feel herself seriously offended, and yet sorry for the 
youth’s folly, took up the same tone. 

“ Indeed, Roland, you forget yourself so strangely,” said 
she, “that you will tempt me to take serious measures to 
lower you in your own opinion by reducing yow to your 
proper station in society.” 

“And that,” added Lilias, “ would be best done by turn- 
ing him out the same beggar’s brat that your ladyship took 
him in.” 

“ Lilias speaks too rudely,” continued the Lady, “but 
she has spoken the truth, young man ; nor do I think I 
ought to spare that pride which hath so completely turned 
your head. You have been tricked up with fine garments, 
and treated like the son of a gentleman, until you have 
forgot the fountain of your churlish blood.” 


THE ABBOT. 


59 


“ Craving your pardon, most honorable madam, Lilias 
hath not spoken truth, nor does your ladyship know aught 
of my descent, which should entitle you to treat it with 
such decided scorn. I am no beggar’s brat — my grand- 
mother begged from no one, here nor elsewhere — she would 
have perished sooner on the bare moor. We were harried 
out and driven from our home — a chance which has happed 
elsewhere, and to others. Avenel Castle, with its lake and 
its towers, was not at all times able to protect its inhabi- 
tants from want and desolation.” 

“Hear but his assurance!” said Lilias, “he upbraids 
my Lady with the distresses of her family 1 ” 

“ It had indeed been a theme more gratefully spared,” 
said the Lady, affected nevertheless with the allusion. 

“ It was necessary, madam, for my vindication,” said the 
page, “ or I had not even hinted at a word that might give 
you pain. But believe, honored Lady, I am of no churl’s 
blood. My proper descent I know not ; but my only rela- 
tion has said, and my heart has echoed it back and attested 
the truth, that I am sprung of gentle blood, and deserve 
gentle usage.” 

“And upon an assurance so vague as this,” said the 
Lady, “do you propose to expect all the regard, all the 
privileges, befitting high rank and distinguished birth, and 
become a contender for concessions which are only due to 
the noble ? Go to, sir, know yourself, or the master of the 
household shall make you know you are liable to the 
scourge as a malapert boy. You have tasted too little 
the discipline fit for your age and station.” 

“ The master of the household shall taste of my dagger, 
ere I taste of his discipline,” said the page, giving way to 
his restrained passion. “ Lady, I have been too long the 
vassal of a pantoufle, and the slave of a silver whistle. 
You must henceforth find some other to answer your call ; 
and let him be of birth and spirit mean enough to brook 
the scorn of your menials, and to call a church vassal his 
master.” 

“I have deserved this insult,” said the Lady, coloring 
deeply, “for so long enduring and fostering your petu- 
lance. Begone, sir. Leave this castle to-night — I will 
send you the means of subsistence till you find some honest 
mode of support, though I fear your imaginary grandeur 
will be above all others, save those of rapine and violence. 
Begone, sir, and see my face.no more.” 

The page threw himself at her feet in an agony of sor- 


6o 


THE ABBOT. 


row. Mv dear and honored mistress, he said, but was 
unable to iDring out another syllable. 

“Arise, sir,” said the Lady, “and let go my mantle- 
hypocrisy is a poor cloak for ingratitude.” 

“ I am incapable of either, madam,” said the page, spring- 
ing up with the hasty start of passion which belonged to 
his rapid and impetuous temper. “Think not I meant to 
implore permission to reside here ; it has been long my 
determination to leave Avenel, and I will never forgive 
myself for having permitted you to say the word begone, 
ere I said, ‘ I leave you.’ I did but kneel to ask your for- 
giveness for an ill considered word used in the height of 
displeasure, but which ill became my mouth, as addressed 
to you. Other grace I ask not — you have done much for 
me — but I repeat, that you better know what you yourself 
have done, than what I have suffered.” 

“Roland,” said the Lady, somewhat appeased, and re- 
lenting toward her favorite, “you had me to appeal to 
when you were aggrieved. You were neither called upon 
to suffer wrong, nor entitled to resent it, when you were 
under my protection.” 

“And what,” said the youth, “if I sustained wrong from 
those you loved and favored, was I to disturb your peace 
with idle tale-bearings and eternal complaints ? No, madam ; 

I have borne my own burden in silence, and without dis- 
turbing you with murmurs ; and the respect which you 
accuse me of wanting, furnishes the only reason why I 
have neither appealed to you, nor taken vengeance at my 
own hand in a manner far more effectual. It is well, how- 
ever, that we part. I was not born to be a stipendiary, 
favored by his mistress, until ruined by the calumnies of 
others. May Heaven multiply its choicest blessings on 
your honored head ; and, for your sake, upon all that are 
dear to you ! ” 

He was about to leave the apartment, when the Lady 
called upon him to return. He stood still, while she thus 
addressed him : “ It was not my intention, nor would it be 
just, even in the height of my displeasure, to dismiss you 
without the means of support ; take this purse of gold.” 

“ Forgive me. Lady,” said the boy, “ and let me go hence 
with the consciousness that I have not been degraded to 
the point of accepting alms. If my poor services can be 
placed against the expense of my apparel and my main- 
tenance, 1 only remain debtor to you for my life, and that 
alone is a debt which I can never repay ; put up then that 


THE ABB 07'. 


6i 


purse, and only say, instead, that you do not part from me 
in anger.” 

No, not in anger, ’ said the lady, “ in sorrow rather for 
your wilfnlness ; but take the gold, you cannot but need it.” 

“May God evermore bless you for the kind tone and 
the kind word ! but the gold I cannot take. I am able of 
body, and do not lack friends so wholly as vou may think ; 
for the time may come that I may yet show myself more 
thankful than by mere words.” He threw himself on his 
knees, kissed the hand which she did not withdraw, and 
then hastily left the apartment. 

Lilias, for a moment or two, kept her eye fixed on her 
mistress, who looked so unusually pale, that slie seemed 
about to faint ; but the lady instantly recovered herself, 
and declining the assistance which her attendant offered 
her, walked to her own apartment. 


CHAPTER SIXTH. 

Thou hast each secret of the household, Francis. 

I dare be sworn thou hast been in the buttery 
Steeping thy cuidous humour in fat ale, 

And in the butler’s tattle — ay, or chatting 
With the glib waiting-woman o’er her comfits — 

These bear the key to each domestic mystery. 

Old Play. 

Upon the morrow succeeding the scene we have described, 
the disgraced favorite left the castle ; and at breakfast- 
time the cautious old steward and Mrs. Lilias sat in the 
apartment of the latter personage, holding grave converse 
on the important event of the day, sweetened by a small 
treat of comfits, to which the providence of Mr. Wingate 
had added a little flask of racy canary. 

“ He is gone at last,” said the abigail, sipping her glass ; 
“and here is to his good journey.” 

“Amen,” answered the steward, gravely ; “ I wish the 
poor deserted lad no ill.” 

“ And he is gone like a wild-duck, as he came,” con- 
tinued Mrs. Lilias ; “ no lowering of drawbridges, or 
pacing along causeways, for him. My master has pushed 
off in the boat which they call the little Herod (more 
shame to them for giving the name of a Christian to wood 
and iron), and has rowed himself by himself to the farther 
side of the loch, and off and away with himself, and left all 


62 


THE ABBOT. 


his finery strewed about his room. I wonder who is to 
clean his trumpery out after him — though the things are 
worth lifting, too.” 

“ Doubtless, Mistress Lilias,” answered the master of the 
household; “in the which case, I am free to think, they 
will not long cumber the floor.” 

“And now tell me. Master Wingate,” continued the 
damsel, “ do not the very cockles of your heart rejoice at 
the house being rid of this upstart whelp, that flung us all 
into shadow ? ” 

“Why, Mistress Lilias,” replied Wingate, “as to rejoicing 
— those who have lived as long in great families as has been 
my lot, will be in no hurry to rejoice at anything. And 
for Roland Graeme, though he may be a good riddance in 
the main, yet what says the very sooth proverb, ‘ Seldom 
comes a better.’ ” 

“Seldom comes a better, indeed!” echoed Mrs. Lilias. 
“ I say, never can come a worse, or one half so bad. He 
might have been the ruin of our poor dear mistress” (here 
she used her kerchief), “ body and soul, and estate too ; 
for she spent more coin on his apparel than on any four 
servants about the house.” 

“Mrs. Ivilias,” said the sage steward, “I do opine that 
our mistress requireth not this pity at your hands, being in 
all respects competent to take care of her own body, soul, 
and estate into the bargain.” 

“You would not mayhap have said so,” answered the 
waiting-woman, “ had you seen how like Lot’s wife she 
looked when young master took his leave. My mistress is 
a good lady, and a virtuous, and a well-doing lady, and a 
well-spoken of — but I vv'ould not Sir Halbert had seen her 
last evening for two and a plack.” 

“ Oh, foy ! foy ! foy ! ” reiterated the steward ; “ servants 
should hear and see, and say nothing. Besides that, my 
Lady is utterly devoted to Sir Halbert, as well she may, 
being, as he is, the most renowned knight in these parts.” 

“ Well, well,” said the abigail, “ I mean no more liarm ; 
but they that seek least renown abroad, are most apt to 
find quiet at home, that’s all ; and my Lady’s lonesome 
situation is to be considered, that made her fain to take up 
with the first beggar’s brat that a dog brought her out of 
the loch.” 

“And, therefore,” said the steward, “I say, rejoice not 
too much, or too hastily, Mistress Lilias ; for if your Lady 
wished a favorite to pass away the time, depend upon it, 


THE ABBOT. 


63 

the time will not pass lighter now that he is gone. So she 
will have another favorite to choose for herself ; and be 
assured, if she wishes such a toy, she will not lack one.” 

“And where should she choose one, but among her own 
tried and faithful servants,” said Mrs. Lilias, “who have 
broken her bread, and drunk her drink, for so many years? 
I have known many a lady as high as she is, that never 
thought either of a friend or favorite beyond their own 
waiting-woman — always having a proper respect, at the 
same time, for their old and faithful master of the house- 
hold, Master Wingate.” 

“Truly, Mistress Lilias,” replied the steward, “I do 
partly see the mark at which you shoot, but I doubt your 
bolt will fall short. Matters being with our Lady as it 
likes you to suppose, it will neither be your crimped pin- 
ners, Mrs. Lilias (speaking of them with due respect), nor 
my silver hair, or golden chain, that will fill up the void 
which Roland Graeme must needs leave in our Lady’s 
leisure. There will be a learned young divine with some 
new doctrine — a learned leech with some new drug — a bold 
cavalier, who will not be refused the favor of wearing her 
colors at a running at the ring — a cunning harper that 
could harp the heart out of woman’s breast, as they say 
Signor David Rizzio did to our poor Queen ; — these are 
the sort of folk who supply the loss of a well-favored 
favorite, and not an old steward, or a middle-aged waiting- 
woman.” 

“Well,” replied Lilias, “you have experience. Master 
Wingate, and truly I would my master would leave off his 
pricking hither and thither, and look better after the affairs 
of his household. There will be a papistrie among us next, 
for what should I see among master’s clothes but a string 
of gold beads ? I promise you, aves and credos both ; — I 
seized on them like a falcon.” 

“ I doubt it not, I doubt it not,” said the steward, saga- 
ciously nodding his head ; “I have often noticed that the 
boy had strange observances which savored of popery, and 
that he was very jealous to conceal them. But you will 
find the Catholic under the Presbyterian cloak as often as 
the knave under the Friar’s hood — what then ? we are all 
mortal — Right proper beads they are,” he added, looking 
attentively at them, “ and may weigh four ounces of fine 
gold.” 

“ And I will have them melted down presently,” she said, 

“ before they be the misguiding of some poor blinded soul.” 


THE ABBOT 


Very cautious, indeed, Mistress Lilias,” said the stew- 
ard, nodding his head in assent. 

“I will have them made,” said Mistress Lilias, into a 
pair of shoe-buckles ; I would not wear the Pope’s trin- 
kets, or whatever has once borne the shape of them, one 
inch above my instep, were they diamonds instead of gold 
— But this is what has come of Father Ambrose coming 
about the castle, as demure as a cat that is about to steal 
cream.” 

Father Ambrose is our master’s brother,” said the stew- 
ard, gravely. 

“Very true. Master Wingate,” answered the Dame; 
“but is that a good reason why he should pervert the 
King’s liege subjects to papistrie?” 

“ Heaven forbid, Mistress Lilias,” answered the senten- 
tious major-domo ; “ but yet there are worse folk than the 
Papists.” 

“ I wonder where they are to be found,” said the waiting 
woman, with some asperity ; “but I believe, Master Win- 
gate, if one were to speak to you about the devil himself, 
you would say there were w^orse people than Satan.” 

“ Assuredly I might say so,” replied the steward, “sup- 
posing that I saw Satan standing at my elbow.” 

The waiting-woman started, and having exclaimed, “God 
bless us ! ” added, “ I wonder. Master Wingate, you can 
take pleasure in frightening one thus.” 

“ Nay, Mistress Lilias, I had no such purpose,” was the 
reply ; “ but look you here— the Papists are but put down 
for the present, but who knows how long this word present 
will last ? There are two great Popish earls in the north of 
England, that abominate the very word reformation ; I 
mean the Northumberland and Westmoreland Earls, men 
of power enough to shake any throne in Christendom. 
Then, though our Scottish king be, God bless him, a true 
Protestant, yet he is but a boy ; and here is his mother, 
that was our queen — I trust there is no harm to say, God 
bless her too — and she is a Catholic ; and many begin to 
think she has had but hard measure, such as the Hamiltons 
in the west, and some of our Border clans here, and the 
Gordons in the north, who are all wishing to see a new 
world ; and if such a new world should chance to come 
up, it is like that the Queen will take back her own crown, 
and that the mass and the cross will come up, and then 
down go pulpits, Geneva gowns, and black silk skull- 
caps.” 


THE ABBOT. 


65 

And have you, Master Jasper Wingate, who have heard 
the word, and listened unto pure and precious Mr. Henry 
\\ arden — have you, I say, the patience to speak, or but to 
think, of popery coming down on us like a storm, or of 
the woman Mary again making the royal seat of Scotland 
a throne of abomination; no marvel that you are so civil 
to the cowled monk. Father Ambrose, when he comes 
hither with his down-cast eyes that he never raises to my 
Lady’s face, and with his low sweet-toned voice, and his 
benedicites, and his benisons ; and who so ready to take' 
them kindly as Master Wingate ?” 

“Mistress Lilias,” replied the butler, with an air which 
was intended to close the debate, “there are reasons for 
all things. If I received Father Ambrose debonairly, and 
suffered him to steal a word now and then with this same 
Roland Graeme, it was not that I cared a brass bodle for 
his benison or malison either, but only because I respected 
my master’s blood. And who can answer, if Mary come 
in again, whether he may not be as stout a tree to lean to 
as ever his brother hath proved to us ? For down goes the 
Earl of Murray when the Queen comes by her own again ; 
and good is his luck if he can keep the head on his own 
shoulders. And down goes our Knight, with the Earl, his 
patron ; and who so like to mount into his empty saddle 
as this same Father Ambrose? The Pope of Rome can 
soon dispense with his vows, and then we should have Sir 
Edward the soldier, instead of Ambrose the priest.” 

Anger and astonishment kept Mrs. Lilias silent, while 
her old friend, in his self-complacent manner, was making 
known to her his political speculations. At length her re- 
sentment found utterance in words of great ire and scorn. 
“What, Master Wingate! have you eaten my mistress’s 
bread, to say nothing of my master’s, so many years, that 
you could live to think of her being dispossessed of her own 
Castle of Avenel, by a wretched monk, who is not a drop’s 
blood to her in the way of relation ? I that am but a 
woman, would try first whether my rock or his cowl was 
the better metal. Shame on you. Master Wingate ! If I 
had not held you as so old an acquaintance, this should 
have gone to my Lady’s ears, though I had been called 
pick thank and tale-pyet for my pains, as when I told of 
Roland Graeme sliooting the wild swan.” 

Master Wingate was somewhat dismayed at perceiving, 
that the details which he had given of his far-sighted 
political views had produced on his hearer rather sus- 
5 


66 


THE ABBOT. 


picion of his fidelity than admiration of his wisdom, and 
endeavored, as hastily as possible, to apologize and to ex- 
plain, although internally extremely offended at the un- 
reasonable view, as he deemed it, which it had pleased Mrs. 
Lilias Bradbourne to take of his expressions ; and mentally 
convinced that her disapprobation of his sentiments arose 
solely out of the consideration, that though Father Am- 
brose, supposing him to become the master of the castle, 
would certainly require the services of a steward, yet those 
of a waiting- woman would, in the supposed circumstances, 
be altogether superfluous. 

After his explanation had been received as explanations 
usually are, the two friends separated ; Lilias to attend the 
silver whistle which called her to her mistress’s chamber, 
and the sapient major-domo to the duties of his own de- 
partment. They parted with less than their usual degree 
of reverence and regard ; for the steward felt that his 
worldly wisdom was rebuked by the more disinterested at- 
tachment of the waiting-woman, and Mistress Lilias Brad* 
bourne was compelled to consider her old friend as some- 
thing little better than a time-server. 


CHAPTER SEVENTH. 

When I hae a saxpence under my thumb, 

Then I get credit in ilka town ; 

But when I am puir they bid me gae by — 

Oh, poverty parts good company ! 

Old Song. 

While the departure of the page afforded subject for the 
conversation which we have detailed in our last chapter, 
the late favorite was far advanced on his solitary journey, 
without well knowing what was its object, or what was 
likely to be its end. He had rowed the skiff in which he 
left the castle to the side of the lake most distant from the 
village, with the desire of escaping from the notice of the 
inhabitants. His pride whispered, that he would be, in his 
discarded state, only the subject of their wonder and com- 
passion ; and his generosity told him, that any mark of 
sympathy which his situation should excite, might be un- 
favorably reported at the castle. A trifling incident con- 
vinced him he had little to fear for his friends on the latter 
score. He was met by a young man some years older than 


THE ABBOT. 


67 


himself, who had on former occasions been but too happy 
to be permitted to share in his sports in the subordinate 
character of his assistant. Ralph Fisher approached to 
greet him, with all the alacrity of an humble friend. 

What, Master Roland, abroad on this side, and without 
either hawk or hound ? ” 

“ Hawk or hound,” said Roland, “ I will never perhaps 
hollo to again. I have been dismissed — that is, I have left 
the castle.” 

Ralph was surprised. “ What ! you are to pass into the 
Knight’s service, and take the black jack and the lance ?” 

“ Indeed,” replied Roland Groeme, “ I am not — I am now 
leaving the service of Avenel for ever.” 

“ And whither are you going, then ? ” said the young 
peasant. 

“Nay, that is a question which it craves time to answer 
— I have that matter to determine yet,” replied the dis- 
graced favorite. 

“Nay, nay,” said Ralph, “ I warrant you it is the same 
to you which way you go — my Lady would not dismiss you 
till she had put some lining into the pouches of your doub- 
let.” 

“ Sordid slave ! ” said Roland Graeme, “ dost thou think 
I would have accepted a boon from one who was giving 
me over a prey to detraction and to ruin, at the instiga- 
tion of a canting priest and a meddling serving-woman ? 
The bread that I had bought with such an alms would have 
choked me at the first mouthful.” 

Ralph looked at his quondam friend with an air of won- 
der not unmixed with contempt. “Well,” he said, at 
length, “ no occasion for passion — each man knows his own 
stomach best — but, were I on a black moor at this time of 
day, not knowing w^hither I was going, I should be glad to 
have a broad piece or two in my pouch, come by them as 
I could. — But perhaps you will go with me to my father’s 
— that is, for a night, for to-morrow we expect my uncle 
Menelaus and all his folk ; but, as I said, for one night ” 

The cold-blooded limitation of the offered shelter to one 
night only, and that tendered most unwillingly, offended 
the pride of the discarded favorite. 

“ I would rather sleep on the fresh heather, as I have 
done many a night on less occasion,” said Roland Graeme, 
“than in the smoky garret of your father, that smells of 
peat smoke and usquebaugh like a Highlander’s plaid.” 


68 


THE ABBOT. 


“You may choose, my master, if you are so nice,” re- 
plied Ralph Fisher; “you may be glad to smell a peat- 
fire, usquebaugh too, if you journey long in the fashion 
you propose. You might have said God-a-mercy for your 
proffer, though — it is not every one will put themselves in 
the way of ill-will by harboring a discarded serving-man.” 

“Ralph,” said Roland Graeme, “I would pray you to 
remember that I have switched you before now, and this is 
the same riding- wand which you have tasted.” 

Ralph, who was a thickset clownish figure, arrived at 
his full strength, and conscious of the most complete per- 
sonal superiority, laughed contemptuously at the threats 
of the slight-made stripling. 

“It may be the same wand,” he said, “ but not the same 
hand ; and that is as good rhyme as if it were in a ballad. 
Look you, my Lady’s page that was, when your switch was 
up, it was no fear of you, but of your betters, that kept 
mine down — and I wot not what hinders me from clearing 
old scores with this hazel rung, and showing you it was 
your Lady’s livery-coat which I spared, and not your flesh 
and blood. Master Roland.” 

In the midst of his rage, Roland Graeme was just wise 
enough to see, that by continuing this altercation, he would 
subject himself to very rude treatment from the boor, who 
was so much older and stronger than himself ; and while 
his antagonist, with a sort of jeering laugh of defiance, 
seemed to provoke the contest, he felt the full bitterness 
of his own degraded condition, and burst into a passion of 
tears, which he in vain endeavored to conceal with both 
his hands. 

Even the rough churl was moved with the distress of his 
quondam companion. 

“Nay, Master Roland,” he said, “I did but as ’twere 
jest with thee — I would not harm thee, man, were it but 
for old acquaintance sake. But ever look to a man’s inches 
ere you talk of switching — why, thine arm, man, is but like 
a spindle compared to mine. But hark, I hear old Adam 
Woodcock hollowing to his hawk. Come along, man, we 
will have a merry afternoon, and go jollily to my father’s, 
in spite of the peat-smoke and usquebaugh to boot. Maybe 
we may put you into some honest way of winning your 
bread, though it’s hard to come by in these broken times.” 

The unfortunnte page made no answer, nor did he with- 
draw his hands from his face, and Fisher continued in what 
he imagined a suitable tone of comfort. 


THE ABBOT. 


69 


“ Why, man when you were my Lady’s minion, men 
held } ou proud, and some thought you a Papist, and I wot 
not what ; and so, now that you have no one to bear you 
out, you must be companionable and hearty, and wait on 
the ministers examinations, and put these things out of 
folk s head ; and if he says you are in fault, you nfust jouk 
} ur head to the stream ; and if a gentleman, or a gentle- 
man s gentleman, give you a rough word, or a light blow 
thank you for dusting my doublet, o; 
the like, as I have done by you. But hark to Woodcock’s 
whistle again. Come, and I will teach vou all the tricks 
on t as we go on.” 

‘‘ I thank you,” said Roland Graeme, endeavoring to as- 
sume an air of indifference and of superiority ; but I have 
another path before me, and were it otherwise,’ I could not 
tread in your^.” 

“Very true. Master Roland,” replied the clowm ; ‘‘and 
every man knows his own matters best, and so I wall not 
keep you from the path, as you say. Give us a grip of 
your hand, man, for auld langsyne. What ! not clap palms 
ere we part !— well, so be it— a wilful man will have his way 
and so farewell, and the blessing of the mornino- to you ” 
“Good-morrow— good-morrow,” said Roland, hastily 
and the clown walked lightly off, whistling as he went and 
glad, apparently, to be rid of an acquaintance whose claims 
might be troublesome, and who had no longer the means 
to be serviceable to him. 


Roland Graeme compelled himself to walk on while tliey 
were within sight of each other, that his former intimate 
might not augur any vacillation of purpose, or uncertainty 
of object, from his remaining on the same spot ; but the effort 
was a painful one. He seemed stunned as it were, and 
giddy ; the earth on which he stood felt as if unsound 
and quaking under his feet like the surface of a boo- • and 
he had once or twice nearly fallen, though the path he 
trode was of firm greensward. He kept resolutely moving 
forward, in spite of the internal agitation to which these 
symptoms belonged, until the distant form of his acquaint- 
ance disappeared behind the slope of a hill, when his 
heart failed at once ; and, sitting down on the turf, remote 
from human ken, he gave way to the natural expressions 
of wounded pride, grief, and fear, and wept with unre- 
strained profusion and unqualified bitterness. 

When the first violent paroxysm of his feelings had sub- 
sided, the deserted and friendless youth felt that mental 


70 


THE ABBOT. 


relief which usually follows such discharges of sorrow. The 
tears continued to chase each other down his cheeks, but 
they were no longer accompanied by the same sense of 
desolation ; an afflicting yet milder sentiment was awak- 
ened in his mind, by the recollection of his benefactress, 
of the unwearied kindness which had attached her to him, 
in spite of many acts of provoking petulance, now recol- 
lected as offences of a deep dye, which had protected him 
against the machinations of others, as well as against the 
consequences of his own folly, and would have continued 
to do so, had not the excess of his presumption compelled 
her to withdraw her protection. 

“ Whatever indignity I have borne, he said, “ has been 
the just reward of my own ingratitude. And have I done 
well to accept the hospitality, the more than maternal 
kindness, of my protectress, yet to detain Irom her the 
knowledge of my religion ? — but she shall know that a 
Catholic has as much gratitude as a Puritan — that I have 
been thoughtless but not wicked — that in my wildest mo- 
ments I have loved, respected, and honored her — and that 
the orphan boy might indeed be heedless, but was never 
ungrateful ! 

He turned as these thoughts passed through his mind, 
and began hastily to retread his footsteps toward the 
castle. But he checked the first eagerness of his repent- 
ant haste, when he reflected on the scorn and contempt 
with which the family were likely to see the return of the 
fugitive, humbled, as they must necessarily suppose him, 
into a supplicant, who requested pardon for his fault, and 
permission to return to his service. He slackened his pace, 
but he stood not still. 

“ I care not,” he resolutely determined ; “ let them wink, 
point, nod, sneer, speak of the conceit which is humbled, 
of the pride which has had a fall — I care not ; it is a pen- 
ance due to my folly, and I will endure it with patience. 
But if she also, my benefactress, if she also should think 
me sordid and weak-spirited enough to beg, not for her 
pardon alone, but for a renewal of the advantages which 
I derived from her favor — her suspicion of my meanness ^ 
cannot — I will not brook.” 

He stood still, and his pride rallying with constitutional 
obstinacy against his more just feeling, urged that he would 
incur the scorn of the Lady of Avenel, rather than obtain 
her favor, by following the course which the first ardor of 
his repentant feelings had dictated to him. 


THE ABBOT. 


7 ^ 


“If I had but some plausible pretext,” he thought 

some ostensible reason for my return, some excuse to 
allege which might show I came not as a degraded suppli^ 
cant, or a discarded menial, I might go thither — but as I 
am I cannot— my heart would leap from its place and 
burst. ^ 

As these thoughts swept through his mind, something 
passed in the air so near him as to dazzle his eyes, and al- 
most to brush the plume in his cap. He looked up— 
It was the favorite falcon of Sir Halbert, which, flying 
around his head seemed to claim his attention, as that 
of a well-known friend. Roland extended his arm, and 
gave the accustomed whoop, and the falcon instantly 
settled on his wrist, and began to prune itself, glancing 
At the youth from time to time an acute and brilliant 
beam of its hazel eye, which seemed to ask why he ca- 
ressed it not with his usual fondness. 

“ Ah, Diamond ! ” he said, as if the bird understood him, 
“ thou and I must be strangers henceforward. Many a 
gallant stoop have I seen thee make, and many a brave 
heron strike down ; but that is all gone and over, and there 
is no hawking more for me !” 

“ And why not. Master Roland,” said Adam Woodcock, 
the falconer, who came at that instant from behind a few 
alder bushes which had concealed him from view, '‘why 
should there be no more hawking for you ? Why, man, 
what were our life without our sports ? — thou knowest 
the jolly old song — 

“ And rather would Allan in dungeon lie, 

Than live at large where the falcon cannot fly ; 

And Allan would rather lie in Sexton’s pound, 

Than live where he follow’d not the meriy hawk and hound.” 

The voice of the falconer was hearty and friendly, and 
the tone in which he half-sung, half-recited his rude ballad, 
implied honest frankness and cordiality. But remem- 
brance of their quarrel, and its consequences, embarrassed 
Roland, and prevented his reply. The falconer saw his 
hesitation, and guessed the cause. 

" What now,” said he, “ Master Roland ? do you, who are 
half an Englishman, think that I, who am a whole one, 
would keep up anger against you, and you in distress? 
That were like some of the Scots (my master’s reverence 
always excepted), who can be fair and false, and wait their 
time, and keep their mind, as they say, to themselves, and 


72 


THE ABBOT. 


touch pot and flagon with you, and hunt and hawk with 
you, and, after all, when time serves, pay off some old feud 
with the point of a dagger. Canny Yorkshire has no mem- 
ory for such old sores. Why, man, an you had hit me a 
rough blow, maybe I would rather have taken it from you 
than a rough word from another ; for you have a good no- 
tion of falconry, though you stand up for washing the 
meat for the eyases. So give us your hand, man, and bear 
no malice.” 

Roland, though he felt his proud blood rebel at the 
familiarity of honest Adam’s address, could not resist its 
downright frankness. Covering his face with the one 
hand, he held out the other to the falconer, and returned 
with readiness his friendly grasp. 

“Why, this is hearty now,” said Woodcock ; “ I always 
said you had a kind heart, though you have a spice of the 
devil in your disposition, that is certain. I came this way 
with the falcon on purpose to find you, and yon half-bred 
lubbard told me which way you took flight. You ever 
thought too much of that kestril-kite. Master Roland, and 
he knows nought of sport after all, but what he caught 
from you. I saw how it had been betwixt you, and I sent 
him out of my company with a wanion — I would rather 
have a rifler on my perch than a false knave at my elbow 
— and now. Master Roland, tell me what way wing ye ? ” 

“ That is as God pleases,” replied the page, with a sigh 
which he could not suppress. 

“ Nay, man, never droop a feather for being cast off,” said 
the falconer; “who knows but you may soar the better 
and fairer flight for all this yet ? — Look at Diamond, there, 
’tis a noble bird, and shows gallantly with his hood, and 
bells, and jesses ; but there is many a wild falcon in Nor- 
way that would not change properties with him — And that 
is what I would say of you. You are no longer my Lady’s 
page, and vou will not clothe so fair, or feed so well, or 
sleep so soft, or show so gallant — What of all that ? if you 
are not her page, you are your own man, and may go where 
you will, without minding whoop or whistle. The worst is 
the loss of the sport, but who knows what you may come 
to? They say that Sir Halbert himself, I speak with rev- 
erence, was once glad to be the Abbot’s forester, and now 
he has hounds and hawks of his own, and Adam Wood- 
cock for a falconer to the boot.” 

“ You are right, and say well, Adam,” answered the 
youth, the blood mantling in his cheeks, “ the falcon will 


THE ABBOT 


73 

soar higher without his bells than with them, though the 
bells be made of silver.” 

“That is cheerily spoken,” replied the falconer: “and 
whither now ? ” 

“ I thought of going to the Abbey of Kennaquhair ” 
answered Roland Graeme, “ to ask the counsel of Father 
Ambrose.” 

“And joy go with you,” said the falconer, “though it is 
likely you may find the old monks in some sorrow ; they 
say the commons are threatening to turn them out of their 
cells, and make a devil’s mass of it in the old church, think* 
ing they have forborne that sport too long ; and troth I 
am clear of the same opinion.” 

“Then will Father Ambrose be the better of having a 
friend beside him,” said the page, manfully. 

“Ay, but, my young fearnought,” replied the falconer, 
“the friend will scarce be the better of being beside Father 
Ambrose— he may come by the redder’s lick, and that is 
ever the worst of the battle.” 

“ I care not for that,” said the page, “ the dread of a lick 
should not hold me back ; but I fear I may bring trouble 
between the brothers by visiting Father Ambrose. I will 
tarry to-night at Saint Cuthbert s cell, where the old priest 
will give me a night’s shelter ; and I will send to Father 
Ambrose to ask his advice before I go down to the con- 
vent.” 

“ By Our Lady,” said the falconer, “and that is a likely 
plan — and now,” he continued, exchanging his frankness 
of manner for a sort of awkward embarrassment, as if he 
had somewhat to say that he had no ready means to bring 
out — “and now, you wot well that I wear a pouch for my 
hawk’s meat,* and so forth ; but wot you what it is lined 
with, Master Roland ? ” 

“ With leather, to be sure,” replied Roland, somewhat 
surprised at the hesitation with which Adam Woodcock 
asked a question apparently so simple. 

“With leather, lad?” said Woodcock; “ay, and with 
silver to the boot of that. See here,” he said, showing a 
secret slit in the lining of his bag of office — “ here they 
are, thirty good Harry groats as ever were struck in bluff 

* This same bag, like everything belonging to falconry, was esteemed 
an honorable distinction, and worn often by the nobility and gentry. One 
of the Somervilles of Camnethan was called Sir John with the red bag, 
because it was his wont to wear his hawking pouch covered with satin of 
that color. 


74 


THE ABBOT. 


old Hall’s time, and ten of them are right heartily at your 
service ; and now the murder is out.” 

Roland’s first idea was to refuse his assistance ; but he 
recollected the vows of humility which he had just taken 
upon him, and it occurred that this was the opportunity to 
put his new-formed resolution to the test. Assuming a 
strong command of himself, he answered Adam Woodcock 
with as much frankness as his nature permitted him to 
wear, in doing what was so contrary to his inclinations, 
that he accepted thankfully of his kind offer, while, to 
soothe his own reviving pride, he could not help adding, 
“ he hoped soon to requite the obligation.” 

“ That as you list—that as you list, young man,” said the 
falconer, with glee, counting out and delivering to his 
young friend the supply he had so generously offered, and 
then adding, with great cheerfulness, — “Now, you may go 
through the world ; for he that can back a horse, wind a 
horn, hollow a greyhound, fly a hawk, and play at sword 
and buckler, with a whole pair of shoes, a green jacket, 
and ten lily-white groats in his pouch, may bid Father Care 
hang himself in his own jesses. Farewell, and God be 
with you ! ” 

So saying, and as if desirous to avoid the thanks of his 
companion, he turned hastily round, and left Roland 
Graeme to pursue his journey alone. 


CHAPTER EIGHTH. 

The sacred tapers’ lights are gone, 

Gray moss has clad the altar stone, 

The holy image is o’erthrown. 

The bell has ceased to toll, 

The long-ribb’d aisles are burst and shrunk. 

The holy shrines to ruin sunk. 

Departed is the pious monk, 

God’s blessing on his soul ! 

Rediviva. 

The cell of Saint Cuthbert, as it was called, marked, or 
was supposed to mark, one of those resting-places which 
that venerable saint was pleased to assign to his monks, when 
his convent, being driven from Lindisfern by the Danes, 
became a peripatetic society of religionists, and, bearing 
their patron’s body on their shoulders, transported him 
from place to place througii Scotland and the borders of 


THE ABBOT. 


75 

England, until he was pleased at length to spare them the 
pain of carrying him farther, and to choose his ultimate 
place of rest in the lordly towers of Durham. The odor of 
his sanctity remained behind him at each place where he 
had granted the monks a transient respite from their 
labors ; and proud were those who could assign, as his 
^mporary resting-place, any spot within their \dcinitv. 
There were few cells more celebrated and honored than 
that of Saint Cuthbert, to which Roland Graeme now bent 
his way, situated considerably to the northwest of the 
great Abbey of Kennaquhair, on which it was dependent. 
In the neighborhood were some of those recommendations 
\vdiich weighed with the experienced priesthood of Rome 
in choosing their sites for places of religion. 

There was a well, possessed of some medicinal qualities, 
which, of course, claimed the saint for its guardian and 
patron, and occasionally produced some advantage to the 
recluse who inhabited his cell, since none could reasonably 
expect to benefit by the fountain who did not extend their 
bounty to the saint’s chaplain. A few roods of fertile land 
afforded the monk his plot of garden-ground ; an eminence 
well clothed with trees rose behind the cell, and sheltered 
it from the north and the east, while the front, opening to 
the southwest, looked up a wild but pleasant valley, down 
which wandered a lively brook, which battled with every 
stone that interrupted its passage. 

The cell itself was rather plainly than rudely constructed 
— a low Gothic building with two small apartments, one 
of which served the priest for his dwelling-place, the other 
for his chapel. As there were few of the secular clergy 
who durst venture to reside so near the Border, the assist- 
ance of this monk in spiritual affairs had not been useless 
to the community, while the Catholic religion retained 
the ascendency ; as he could marry, christen, and admin- 
ister the other sacraments of the Roman church. Of late, 
however, as the Protestant doctrines gained ground, he 
had found it convenient to live in close retirement, and to 
avoid, as much as possible, drawing upon himself observa- 
tion or animadversion. The appearance of his habitation, 
however, when Roland Graeme come before it in the dose 
of the evening, plainly showed that his caution had been 
finally ineffectual. 

The page’s first movement was to knock at the door, 
when he observed, to his surprise, that it was open, not 
from being left unlatched, but because, beat off its upper 


76 


THE ABBOT, 


hinge, it was only fastened to the door-post by the lower, 
and could therefore no longer perform its functions. Some- 
what alarmed at this, and receiving no answer when he 
knocked and called, Roland began to look more at leisure 
upon the exterior of the little dwelling before he ventured 
to enter it. The flowers, which had been trained with care 
against the walls, seemed to have been recently torn down, 
and trailed their dishonored garlands on the earth ; the 
latticed window was broken and dashed in. The garden, 
which the monk had maintained by his constant labor in 
the highest order and beauty, bore marks of having been 
lately trod down and destroyed by the hoofs of animals, 
and the feet of men. 

The sainted spring had not escaped. It was wont to rise 
beneath a canopy of ribbed arches, with which the devotion 
of elder times had secured and protected its healing waters. 
These arches were now almost entirely demolished, and 
the stones of which they were built were tumbled into the 
well, as if for the purpose of choking up and destroying 
the fountain, which, as it had shared in other days the 
honor of the saint, was, in the present, doomed to partake 
his unpopularity. Part of the roof had been pulled down 
from the house itself, and an attempt had been made with 
crows and levers upon one of the angles, by which several 
large corner-stones had been forced out of their place ; but 
the solidity of ancient mason-work had proved too great 
for the time or patience of the assailants, and they had re- 
linquished their task of destruction. Such dilapidated 
buildings, after the lapse of years, during which nature 
has gradually covered the effects of violence with creeping 
plants, and with weather-stains, exhibit, amid their decay, 
a melancholy beauty. But when the visible effects of vio- 
lence appear raw and recent, there is no feeling to mitigate 
the sense of devastation with which they impress the spec- 
tators ; and such was now the scene on which the youthful 
page gazed, with the painful feelings it was qualified to 
excite. 

Wiien his first momentary surprise was over, Roland 
Graeme was at no loss to conjecture the cause of these rav- 
ages. The destruction of the Popish edifices did not take 
place at once throughout Scotland, but at different times, 
and according to the spirit which actuated the reformed 
clergy ; some of whom instigated their hearers to these 
acts of demolition, and others, with better taste and feeling, 
endeavored to protect the ancient shrines, while they de- 


The abbot. 


77 

sired to see them purified from the objects which Iiad at- 
tracted idolatrous devotion. From time to time, therefore 
the populace of the Scottish towns and villages, when in- 
stigated either by their own feelings of abhorrence for 
Fopish superstition, or by the doctrines of the most zealous 
preachers, resumed the work of destruction, and exercised 
It upon some sequestered church, chapel, or cell, which 
had escaped the first burst of their indignation against the 
religion of Rome. In many places, the vices of the Cath- 
olic clergy, arising out of the wealth and the corruption of 
that tremendous hierarchy, furnished too good an apoloo-y 
for wreaking vengeance upon the splendid edifices whidi 
they inhabited ; and of this an old Scottish historian eives 
a remarkable instance. 

“ Why mourn ye,” said an aged matron, seeing the dis- 
content of some of the citizens, while a stately convent 
was burnt by the multitude, — “why mourn ye for its 
destruction? If you knew half the flagitious wickedness 
which has been perpetrated within that house, you would 
rather bless the divine judgment, which permits not even 
the senseless walls that screened such profligacy any longer 
to cumber Christian ground.” 

But although, in many instances, the destruction of the 
Roman Catholic buildings might be, in the matron’s way 
of judging, an act of justice, and in others an act of policy 
there is no doubt that the humor of demolishing monu- 
ments of ancient piety and munificence, and that m a poor 
country like Scotland, where there was no chance of their 
being replaced, was both useless, mischievous, and bar- 
barous. 

In the present instance, the unpretending and quiet se- 
clusion of the monk of Saint Cuthbert’s had hitherto saved 
him from the general wreck ; but it would seem ruin had 
now at length reached him. Anxious to discover if he 
had at least escaped personal harm, Roland Graeme entered 
the half-ruined cell. 

The interior of the building was in a state which fully 
justified the opinion he had formed from its external in- 
juries. The few rude utensils of the solitary’s hut were 
broken down, and lay scattered on the floor, where it 
seemed as if a fire had been made with some of the frag- 
ments to destroy the rest of his property, and to consume, 
in particular, the rude old image of Saint Cuthbert. in his 
episcopal habit, which lay on the hearth like Dagon of 
yore, shattered with.the.axe and .scorched with the flames. 


78 


THE ABBOT, 


but only partially destroyed. In the little apartment which 
served as a chapel, the altar was overthrown, and the four 
huge stones of which it had been once composed lay scat- 
tered around the floor. The large stone crucifix which 
occupied the niche behind the altar,-* and fronted the sup- 
plicant while he paid his devotion there, had been pulled 
down and dashed by its own weight into three fragments. 
There were marks of sledge-hammers on each of these ; 
yet the image had been saved from utter demolition by the 
size and strength of the remaining fragments, which, 
though much injured*, retained enough of the original 
sculpture to show what it had been intended to represent.* 

Roland Graeme, secretly nursed in the tenets of Rome, 
saw with horror the profanation of the most sacred em- 
blem, according to his creed, of our holy religion. 

“It is the badge of our redemption,” he said, “which 
the felons have dared to violate — would to God my weak 
strength were able to replace it — my humble strength to 
atone for the sacrilege ! ” 

He stooped to the task he first meditated, and with a 
sudden, and to himself almost an incredible exertion of 
power, he lifted up the one extremity of the lower shaft of 
the cross, and rested it upon the edge of the large stone 
which served for its pedestal. Encouraged by this success, 
he applied his force to the other extremity, and, to his own 
astonishment, succeeded so far as to erect the lower end of 
the limb into the socket, out of which it had been forced, 
and to place this fragment of the-image upright. 

While he was employed in this labor, or rather at the 
very moment when he had accomplished the elevation of 
the fragment, a voice, in thrilling and well-known accents, 
spoke behind him these words : “ Well done, thou good 
and faithful servant ! Thus would I again meet the child 
of my love — the hope of my aged eyes.” 

Roland turned round in astonishment, and the tall com- 
manding form of Magdalen Graeme stood beside him. She 
was arrayed in a sort of loose habit, in form like that worn 
by penitents in Catholic countries, but black in color, and 
approaching as near to a pilgrim’s cloak as it was safe to 
wear in a country where the suspicion of Catholic devotion 
in many places endangered the safety of those who were 
suspected of attachment to the ancient faith. Roland 
Graeme threw himself at her feet. She raised and em' 

♦Note C. Cell of St, Cuthbert, 


THE ABBOT. 


79 

braced him, with affection indeed, but not unmixed with 
gravity which amounted almost to sternness. 

“Thou hast kept well,” she said, “the bird in thy 
bosom.* As a boy, as a youth, thou hast held fast thy 
faith amongst heretics— thou hast kept thy secret and 
mine own amongst thine enemies. I wept vvhen I parted 
from you— I who seldom weep, then shed tears, less for 
thy death than for thy spiritual danger— I dared not even 
see thee to bid thee a last farewell — my grief, my swelling 
grief, had betrayed me to these heretics. But thou hast 
been faithful — down, down on thy knees before the holy 
sign, which evil men injure and blaspheme; down, and 
praise saints and angels for the grace they have done thee, 
in preserving thee from the leprous plague which cleaves 
to the house in which thou wert nurtured ! ” 

“If, my mother— so I must ever call you,” replied 
Graeme, “ if I am returned such as thou wouldst wish 
me, thou must thank the care of the pious Father Am- 
brose, whose instructions confirmed your early precepts 
and taught me at once to be faithful and to be silent.” ' 
“Be he blessed for it ! ” said she, “blessed in the cell 
and in the field, in the pulpit and at the altar— the saints 
rain blessings on him !— they are just, and employ his 
pious care to counteract the evils which his detested 
brother works against the realm and the church,— but he 
knew not of thy lineage ?” 

“I could not myself tell him that,” answered Roland. 

“ I knew but darkly from your words, that Sir Halbert 
Glendinning holds mine inheritance, and that I am of 
blood as noble as runs in the veins of any Scottish Baron 
—these are things not to be forgotten, but for the ex- 
planation I must now look to you.” 

“And when time suits, thou shalt not look for it in 
vain. But men say, my son, that thou art bold and sud- 
den ; and those who bear such tempers are not lightly to 
be trusted with what will strongly move them.” 

“Say rather, my mother,” returned Roland Gr^me, 
“that I am laggard and cold-blooded— what patience or 
endurance can ^ou require of which is not capable, 
who for years has heard his religion ridiculed and insulted, 
yet failed to plunge his dagger into the blasphemer’s 
bosom ? ” 

♦An expression used by Sir Ralph Percy, slain in the battle of Hedgely- 
moor in 1464, when dying, to express his having preserved unstained his 
fidelity to the House of Lancaster. 


8o 


THE ABBOT. 


“Be contented, my child,” replied Magdalen Graeme; 
“ the time, which then and even now demands patience, 
will soon ripen to tiiat of effort and action — great events 
are on the wing, and thou — thou shalt have thy share in 
advancing them. Thou hast relinquished the service of 
the Lady of Avenel ? ” 

“ I have been dismissed from it, my mother — I have lived 
to be dismissed, as if I were the meanest of the train.” 

“It is the better, my child,” replied she; “thy mind 
will be the more hardened to undertake that which .must 
be performed.” 

“Let it be nothing, then, against the Lady of Avenel,” 
said the page, “ as thy look and words seem to imply. I 
have eaten her bread — I have experienced her favor — I 
will neither injure nor betray her.” 

“ Of that hereafter, my son,” said she ; “ but learn this, 
that it is not for thee to capitulate in thy duty, and to say 
this will I do, and that will I leave undone — No, Roland ! 
God and man will no longer abide the wickedness of this 
generation. Seest thou these fragments — knowest thou 
what they represent ? — and canst thou think it is for thee 
to make distinctions among a race so accursed by 
Heaven, that they renounce, violate, blaspheme, and de- 
stroy, whatsoever we are commanded to believe in, what- 
soever we are commanded to reverence ? ” 

As she spoke, she bent her head toward the broken 
image, with a countenance in which strong resentment 
and zeal were mingled with an expression of ecstatic de- 
votion ; she raised her hand aloft as in the act of making 
a vow, and thus proceeded : “ Bear witness for me, blessed 
symbol of our salvation, bear witness, holy saint, within 
whose violated temple we stand, that as it is not for venge- 
ance of my own that my hate pursues these people, so 
neither, for any favor or earthly affection toward any 
among them, will I withdraw my hand from the plough 
when it shall pass through the devoted furrow ! Bear 
witness, holy saint, once thyself a wanderer and fugitive as 
we are now — bear witness. Mother of Mercy, Queen of 
Heaven — bear witness, saints and angels !*” 

In this high strain of enthusiasm, she stood, raising her 
eyes through the fractured roof of the vault, to the stars 
which now began to twinkle through the pale twilight, 
while the long gray tresses which hung down over her 
shoulders waved in the night breeze, which the chasm and 
fractured windows admitted freely. 


THE ABBOT. 


8i 


Roland Graeme was too much awed by early habits, as 
well as by the mysterious import of her words, to ask for 
farther explanation of the purpose she obscurely hinted at 
Nor did she farther press him on the subject ; for havin- 
concluded her prayer or obtestation, by clasping her handt 
together with solemnity, and then signing herself with the 
cross, she again addressed her grandson, in a tone more 
adapted to the ordinary business of life. 

“Thou must hence,’; she said, “Roland, thou must 
hence, but not till morning — And now, how wilt thou shift 
lor thy nights quarters ?— thou hast been more softly bred 
than when we were companions in the misty hills of Cum- 
berland and Liddesdale.” 


1 • preserved, my good mother, the habits 

which I then learned— can lie hard, feed sparingly, and think 
It no hjirdship. Since I was a wanderer with thee on the 
huls, I have been a hunter, and fisher, and fowler, and each 
of these is accustomed to sleep freely in a worse shelter 
than sacrilege has left us here.” 

“ Than sacrilege has left us here ! ” said the matron, re- 
peating his words, and pausing on them. “ Most true, my 
son ; and God s faithful children are now worst sheltered 
when they lodge in God’s own house and the demesne of 
his blessed saints. We shall sleep cold here, under the 
night-wind, which whistles through the breaches which 
heresy has made. They shall lie warmer who made them 
— ay, and through a long hereafter.” 

Notwithstanding the wild and singular expression of this 
female, she appeared to retain toward Roland Gr^me in 
a strong degree, that affectionate and sedulous love which 
women bear to their nurslings, and the children dependent 
on their care. It seemed as if she would not permit him 
to do aught for himself which in former days her attention 
had been used to do for him, and that she considered the 
tall stripling before her as being equally dependent on her 
careful attention as when he was the orphan child, who 
had owed all to her affectionate solicitude. 

“What hast thou to eat now ?” she said, as, leaving the 
chapel, they went into the deserted habitation of the priest ; 
“ or what means of kindling a fire, to defend thee from this 
raw and inclement air ? Poor child ! thou hast made slight 
provision for a long journey ; nor hast thou skill to help 
thys^f by wit, when means are scanty. But Our Lady has 
placed by thy side one to whom want, in all its forms, is 
as familiar as plenty and splendor have formerly been. 

6 


82 


THE .IBB or. 


And with want, Roland, come the arts of which she is the 
inventor.” 

With an active and officious diligence, which strangely 
contrasted with her late abstracted and high tone of Cath- 
olic devotion, she set about her domestic arrangements for 
the evening. A pouch, which was hidden under her gar- 
ment, produced a flint and steel, and from the scattered 
fragments around (those pertaining to the image of Saint 
Cuthbert scrupulously excepted) she obtained splinters 
sufficient to raise a sparkling and cheerful fire on the hearth 
of the deserted cell. 

“And now,” she said, “for needful food.” 

“Think not of it, mother,” said Roland, “unless you 
yourself feel hunger. It is a little thing for me to endure 
a night’s abstinence, and a small atonement for the neces- 
sary transgression of the rules of the Church upon which 
I was compelled during my stay in the castle.” 

“ Hunger for myself ! ” answered the matron — “ Know, 
youth, that a mother knows not hunger till that of her 
child is satisfied.” And with affectionate inconsistency, 
totally difierent from her usual manner, she added, “ Ro- 
land, you must not fast ; you have dispensation ; you are 
young, and to youth food and sleep are necessaries not to 
be dispensed with. Husband your strength, my child — 
your sovereign, your religion, your country, require it. 
Let age macerate by fast and vigil a body which can only 
suffer; let youth, in these active times, nourish the limbs 
and the strength which action requires.” 

While she thus spoke, the scrip, which had produced the 
means of striking fire, furnished provision for a meal ; of 
which she herself scarce partook, but anxiously watched 
her charge, taking a pleasure, resembling that of an epi- 
cure, in each morsel which he swallowed with a youthful 
appetite which abstinence had rendered unusually sharp. 
Roland readily obeyed her recommendations, and ate the 
food which she so affectionately and earnestly placed be- 
fore him. But she shook her head when invited by him 
in return to partake of the refreshment her own cares had 
furnished ; and wLen his solicitude became more pressing, 
she refused him in a loftier tone of rejection. 

“Young man,” she said, “you know not to whom or of 
what you speak. They to whom Heaven declares its pur- 
pose must merit its communication by mortifying the 
senses ; they have that within which requires not the su- 
perfluity of earthly nutriment, which is necessary to those 


THE ABB 07: 


83 


who are without the sphere of the Vision. To them the 
watch spent in prayer is a refreshing slumber, and the 
sense of doing the will of Heaven is a richer banquet than 
the tables of monarchs can spread before them ! — But do 
thou sleep soft, my son,” she said, relapsing from the tone 
of fanaticism into that of maternal affection and tenderness ; 

do thou sleep sound while life is but young with thee, 
and the cares of the day can be drowned in the slumbers 
of the evening. Different is thy duty and mine, and as 
different the means by which we must qualify and strength- 
en ourselves to perform it. From thee is demanded strength 
of body — from me strength of soul.” 

When she thus spoke, she prepared with ready address 
a pallet-couch, composed partly of the dried leaves which 
had once furnished a bed to the solitary, and the guests 
who occasionally received his hospitality, and which, 
neglected by the destroyers of his humble cell, had re- 
mained little disturbed in the corner allotted for them. To 
these her care added some of the vestures which lay torn 
and scattered on the floor. With a zealous hand she 
selected all such as appeared to have made any part of the 
sacerdotal vestments, laying them aside as sacred from 
ordinary purposes, and with the rest she made, with dex- 
terous promptness, such a bed as a weary man might wil- 
lingly stretch himself on ; and during the time she was 
preparing it, rejected, even wjth acrimony, any attempt 
which the youth made to assist her, or any entreaty which 
he urged, that she would accept of the place of rest for 
her own use. “ Sleep thou,” said she, “ Roland Graeme, 
sleep thou — the persecuted, the disinherited orphan — the 
son of an ill-fated mother — sleep thou ! I go to pray in the 
chapel beside thee.” 

The manner was too enthusiastically earnest, too obsti- 
nately firm, to permit Roland Graeme to dispute her will 
any farther. Yet he felt some shame in giving way to it. 
It seemed as if she had forgotten the years that had passed 
away since their parting ; and expected to meet, in the tall, 
indulged, and wilful youth, whom she had recovered, the 
passive obedience of the child whom she had left in the 
Castle of Avenel. This did not fail to hurt her grandson’s 
characteristic and constitutional pride. He obeyed, in- 
deed, awed into submission by the sudden recurrence of 
former subordination, and by feelings of affection and 
gratitude. Still, however, he felt the yoke. 

“ Have I relinquished the hawk and the hound,” he 


84 


THE ABBOT. 


said, “ to become the pupil of her pleasure, as if I were 
still a child ? — I, whom even my envious mates allowed to 
be superior in those exercises which they took most pains 
to acquire, and which came to me naturally, as if a knowl- 
edge of them had been my birthright ? This may not, and 
must not be. I will be no reclaimed sparrow-hawk, who 
is carried hooded on a woman’s wrist, and has his quarry 
only shown to him when his eyes are uncovered for liis 
flight. I will know her purpose ere it is proposed to me 
to aid it.” 

These, and other thoughts, streamed through the mind 
of Roland Graeme ; and although wearied with the 
fatigues of the day, it was long ere he could compose 
himself to rest. 


CHAPTER NINTH. 

Kneel with me — swear it — ’tis not in words I trust. 

Save when they’re fenced with an appeal to Heaven. 

Old Play. 

After passing the night in that sound sleep for which 
agitation and fatigue had prepared him, Roland was 
awakened by the fresh morning air, and by the beams of 
the rising sun. His first feeling was that of surprise ; for, 
instead of looking forth from a turret window on the 
waters of the lake of Avenel, which was the prospect his 
former apartment afforded, an unlatticed aperture gave 
him the view of the demolished garden of the banished 
anchorite. He sat up on his couch of leaves, and arranged 
in his memory, not without wonder, tlie singular events of 
the preceding day, which appeared the more surprising 
, the more he considered them. He had lost the protectress 
of his youth, and, in the same day, he had recovered the 
guide and guardian of his childhood. The former depriva- 
tion he felt ought to be matter of unceasing regret, and it 
seemed as if the latter could hardly be the subject of un- 
mixed self-congratulation. He remembered this person, 
who had stood to him in the relation of a mother, as 
equally affectionate in her attention, and absolute in her 
authority. A singular mixture of love and fear attended 
upon his early remembrances as they were connected 
witli ]:cr ; and the fear that she might desire to resume 


THE ABBOT. 


8$ 


the same absolute control over his motions — a fear which 
her conduct of yesterday did not tend much to dissipate — 
weighed heavily against the joy of this second meeting. 

“She cannot mean,” said his rising pride, “to lead and 
direct me as a pupil, when I am at the age of judging of my 
own actions ? — this she cannot mean, or, meaning it, will 
feel herself strangely deceived.” 

A sense of gratitude toward the person against whom 
his heart thus rebelled, checked his course of feeling. He 
resisted the thoughts which involuntarily arose in his mind, 
as he would have resisted an actual instigation of the foul 
fiend ; and, to aid him in his struggle, he felt for his beads. 
But, in his hasty departure from the Castle of Avenel, he 
had forgotten and left them behind him. 

“ This is yet worse,” he said ; “ but two things I learned 
of her under the most deadly charge of secrecy — to tell 
my beads, and to conceal that I did so ; and I have kept 
my word till now ;^and when she shall ask me for the rosary, 

I must say I have forgotten it ! Do I deserve she should 
believe me when I say I have kept the secret of my faith, 
when I set so light by its symbol ? " ^ 

He paced the floor in anxious agitation. In fact, his 
attachment to his. faith was of a nature very different from 
that which animated the enthusiastic matron, but which, 
notwithstanding, it would have been his last thought to 
relinquish. 

The early charges impressed on him by his grandmother, 
had been instilled into a mind and memory of a character 
peculiarly tenacious. Child as he was, he was proud of 
the confidence reposed in his discretion, and resolved to 
show that it had not been rashly intrusted to him. At the 
same time, his resolution was no more than that of a child, 
and must, necessarily, ha\e gradually faded away under 
the operation both of precept and example, during his 
residence at the Castle of Avenel, but for the exhortations 
of Father Ambrose, who, in his lay estate, had been 
called Edward Glendinning. This zealous monk had been 
apprised, by an unsigned letter placed in his hand by a 
pilgrim, that a child educated in the Catholic faith was 
now in the Castle of Avenel, perilously situated (so was the 
scroll expressed), as ever the three children who were cast 
into the fiery furnace of persecution. The letter threw 
upon Father Ambrose the fault, should this solitary lamb, 
unwillingly left within the demesnes of the prowling wolf, 
become his final prey. There needed no further exhorta* 


86 


THE ABBOT. 


tion to the monk than the idea that a soul might be en- 
dangered, and that a Catholic might become an apostate ; 
and he made his visits more frequent than usual to the 
Castle of Avenel, lest, through want of the private en- 
couragement and instruction, which he always found some 
opportunity of dispensing, the church should lose a prose- 
lyte, and, according to the Romish creed, the devil acquire 
a soul. 

Still these interviews were rare ; and though they en- 
couraged the solitary boy to keep his secret and hold fast 
his religion, they were neither frequent nor long enough 
to inspire him with anything beyond a blind attachment 
to the observances which the priest recommended. He 
adhered to the forms of his religion rather because he felt 
it would be dishonorable to change that of his fathers, 
than from any rational conviction or sincere belief of its 
mysterious doctrines. It was a principal part of the dis- 
tinction which, in his own opinion, singled him out from 
those with whom he lived, and gave* him an additional, 
though an internal and concealed reason, for contemning 
those of the household who showed an undisguised dis- 
like of him, and for hardening himself against the instruc- 
tions of the chaplain, Henry Warden. 

“ The fanatic preacher,^’ he thouglit within himself, dur- 
ing some one of the chaplain’s frequent discourses against 
the Church of Rome, “ he little knows whose ears are re- 
ceiving his profane doctrine, and with whaF contempt and 
abhorrence they hear his blasphemies against the holy re- 
ligion by which kings have been crowned, and for which 
martyrs have died ! ” 

But in such proud feelings of defiance of heresy, as it 
was termed, and of its professors, w^hich associated the 
Catholic religion with a sense of generous independence, 
and that of the Protestants with the subjugation of his 
mind and temper to the direction of Mr. Warden, began 
and ended the faith of Roland Graeme, who, independently 
of the pride of singularity, sought not to understand, and 
had no one to expound to him, the peculiarities of the 
tenets which he professed. His regret, therefore, at missing 
the rosary which had been conveyed to him through the 
hands of Father Ambrose, was rather the shame of a sol- 
dier who has dropped his cockade or badge of service, than 
that of a zealous votary who had forgotten a visible sym- 
bol of his religion. 

His thoughts on the subject, however, were mortifying. 


THE ABB07\ 


87 


and the more so from apprehension that his negligence 
must reach the ears of his relative. He felt it could be 
no one but she who had secretly transmitted these beads 
to Father Ambrose for his use, and that his carelessness 
was but an indifferent requital of her kindness. 

“Nor will she omit to ask me about them,” said he to 
himself ; “ for hers is a zeal which age cannot quell ; and 
if she has not quitted her wont, my answer will not fail to 
incense her.” 

While he thus communed with himself, Magdalen Grceme 
entered the apartment. “ The blessing of the morning on 
your youthful head, my son,” she said, with a solemnity of 
expression which thrilled the youth to the heart, so sad 
and earnest did the benediction flow from her lips, in a 
tone where devotion was blended with affection. “ And 
thou hast started thus early from thy couch to catch the 
first breath of the dawn ? But it is not well, my Roland. 
Enjoy slumber while thou canst ; the time is not far behind 
when the waking eye must be thy portion as well as mine.” 

She uttered these words with an affectionate and anxious 
tone, which showed that, devotional as were the habitual 
exercises of her mind, the thoughts of her nursling yet 
bound her to earth with the cords of human affection and 
passion. 

But she abode not long in a mood which she probably 
regarded as a momentary dereliction of her imaginary high 
calling — “Come,” she said, “youth, up and be doing — It 
is time that we leave this place.” 

“And whither do we go ?” said the young man ; “or 
what is the object of our journey ?” 

The matron stepped back, and gazed on him with sur- 
prise, not unmingled with displeasure. 

“ To w'hat purpose such a question ? ” she said ; “ is it 
not enough that I lead the way ? Hast thou lived with 
heretics till thou hast learned to install the vanity of thine 
own private judgment in place of due lionor and obedi- 
ence ? ” 

“The time,” thought Roland Grnsme within himself, “is 
already come, when I must establish my freedom, or be a 
willing thrall forever — I feel that I must speedily look 
to it.” 

She instantly fulfilled his foreboding, by recurring to the 
theme by which her thoughts seemed most constantly en- 
grossed, although, when she pleased, no one could so per- 
fectly disguise her religion. 


88 


THE ABBOT, 


“ Thy beads, my son — hast thou told thy beads ? ” 

Roland Gneine colored high ; he felt the storm was ap- 
proaching, but scorned to avert it by a falsehood. 

“ I have forgotten my rosary,” he said, “at the Castle of 
Avenel.” 

“ Forgotten thy rosary ! ” she exclaimed ; “ false both to 
religion and to natural duty, hast thou lost what was sent 
so far, and at such risk, a token of the truest affection, that 
should have been, every bead of it, as dear to thee as thine 
eyeballs ? ” 

“ I am grieved it should have so chanced, mother,” re- 
plied the youth, “ and much did I value the token as com- 
ing from you. For what remains, I trust to win gold 
enough, when I push my way in the world ; and till then, 
beads of black oak, or a rosary of nuts, must serve the 
turn.” 

“ Hear him ! ” said his grandmother ; “ young as he is, 
he hath learned already the lessons of the devil’s school ! 
The rosary, consecrated by the Holy Father himself, and 
sanctified by his blessing, is but a few knobs of gold, whose 
value may be replaced by the wages of his profane labor, 
and whose virtue may be supplied by a string of hazel nuts ! 
— This is heresy — So Henry Warden, the wolf who ravages 
the flock of the Shepherd, hath taught thee to speak and 
to think.” 

“ Mother,” said Roland Graeme, “ I am no heretic ; I 
believe and I pray according to the rules of our church — 
This misfortune I regret, but I cannot amend it.” 

“ Thou canst repent it, though,” replied his spiritual di- 
rectress, “ repent it in dust and ashes, atone for it by fast- 
ing, prayer, and penance, instead of looking on me with a 
countenance as light as if thou hadst lost but a button from 
thy cap.” 

“ Mother,” said Roland, “be appeased ; I will remember 
my fault in the next confession which I have space and op- 
portunity to make, and will do whatever the priest may 
require of me in atonement. For the heaviest fault I can 
do no more. — But, mother,’* he added, after a moment’s 
pause, “ let me not incur your farther displeasure, if I ask 
whither our journey is bound, and what is its object. I 
am no longer a child, but a man, and at my own disposal, 
with down upon my chin, and a sword by my side — I will 
go to the end of tJ^e world with you to do your pleasure ; 
but I owe it to myself to inquire the purpose and direction 
of our travels.'* 


THE ABBOT. 


89 


“You owe it to yourself, ungrateful boy?” replied his 
relative, passion rapidly supplying the color which age had 
long chased from her features — “to yourself you owe noth- 
ing — you can owe nothing — to me you owe everything — 
your life when an infant — your support while a child — the 
means of instruction, and the hopes of honor — and, sooner 
than thou shouldst abandon the noble cause to which I 
have devoted thee, would I see thee lie a corpse at my 
feet ! ” 

Roland was alarmed at the vehement agitation with 
which she spoke, and which threatened to overpower her 
aged frame ; and he hastened to reply — “ I forget nothing 
of what I owe to you, my dearest mother — show me how 
my blood can testify my gratitude, and you shall judge if 
I spare it. But blindfold obedience has in it as little merit 
as reason.” 

“ Saints and angels ! ” replied Magdalen, “ and do I hear 
these words from the child of my hopes, the nursling by 
whose bed I have kneeled, and for whose weal I have 
wearied every saint in heaven with prayers ? Roland, by 
obedience only canst thou show thy affection and thy 
gratitude. What avails it that you might perchance adopt 
the course I propose to thee, were it to be fully explained ? 
Thou wouldst not then follow my command, but thine own 
judgment ; thou wouldst not do the will of Heaven, com- 
municated through thy best friend, to whom thou owest 
thine all ; but thou wouldst observe the blinded dictates of 
thine own imperfect reason. Hear me, Roland ! a lot calls 
thee —solicits thee — demands thee — the proudest to which 
man can be destined, and it uses the voice of thine earliest, 
thy best, thine only friend — Wilt thou resist it ? Then go 
thy way — leave me here — my hopes on earth are gone and 
withered — I will kneel me down before yonder profaned 
altar, and when the raging heretics return, they shall dye 
it with the blood of a martyr.” 

“ But, my dearest mother,” said Roland Graeme, whose 
early recollections of her violence were formidably re- 
newed by these wild expressions of reckless passion, “ I 
will not forsake you — I will abide with you — worlds shall 
not force me from your side — I will protect — I will defend 
you — I will live with you, and die for you ! ” 

“ One word, my son, were worth all these — say only, 
‘ I will obey you.’ ” 

“ Doubt it not, mother,” replied the youth, “ I will, and 
that with all my heart ; only” 


90 


THE ABBOT. 


“ Nay, I receive no qualifications of thy promise,” said 
Magdalen Graeme, catching at the word, “the obedience 
which I require is absolute ; and a blessing on thee, thou 
darling memory of my beloved child, that thou hast power 
to make a promise so hard to human pride ! Trust me 
\vell, that in the design in which thou dost embark, thou 
hast for thy partners the mighty and the valiant, the power 
of the church, and the pride of the noble. Succeed or fail, 
live or die, thy name shall be among those with whom suc- 
cess or failure is alike glorious, death or life alike desirable. 
Forward, then, forward ! life is short, and our plan is labo- 
rious — Angels, saints, and the whole blessed host of heaven, 
have their eyes even now on this barren and blighted land 
of Scotland— What say I ? on Scotland ?— their eye is on 
us^ Roland — on the frail woman, on the inexperienced 
youth, who, amidst the ruins which sacrilege hath made in 
the holy place, devote themselves to God’s cause, and that 
of their lawful Sovereign. Amen, so be it ! The blessed 
eyes of saints and martyrs which see our resolve shall wit- 
ness the execution ; or their ears which hear our vow shall 
hear our death-groan drawm in the sacred cause ! ” 

While thus speaking, she held Roland Graeme firmly 
with one hand, while she pointed upward with the other, 
to leave him, as it w^ere, no means of protest against the 
obtestation to w^hich he was thus made a party. When she 
had finished her appeal to Heaven, she left him no leisure 
for farther hesitation, or for asking any explanation of her 
purpose ; but passing with the same ready transition as 
formerly to the solicitous attentions of an anxious parent, 
overwhelmed him with questions concerning his residence 
in the Castle of Avenel, and the qualities and accomplish- 
ments he had acquired. 

“ It is well,” she said, when she had exhausted her in- 
quiries, “my gay goshawk* hath been well trained, and 
will soar high ; but those who bred him will have cause to 
fear as weU as to wonder at his flight. — Let us now’,” she 
said, “to our morning meal, and care not though it be a 
scanty one. A few hours’ w’alk will bring us to more 
friendly quarters.” 

They broke their fast, accordingly, on such fragments as 
remained of their yesterday’s provision, and immediately 
set out on their farther journey. Magdalen Graeme led the 
way, with a firm and active step much beyond her years. 


* Note D- Goshawk. 


THE ABB07\ 


91 


and Roland Graeme followed, pensive and anxious, and far 
from satisfied with the state of dependence to which he 
seemed again to be reduced. 

“Am I for ever,’* he said to himself, “to be devoured 
with the desire of independence and free agency, and yet 
to be for ever led on by circumstances to follow the will of 
others ? ” 


CHAPTER TENTH. 

. She dwelt unnoticed and alone 

Beside the springs of Dove ; 

A maid whom there was none to praise, 

And very few to love. 

Wordsworth. 

In the course of their journey the travellers spoke little 
to each other. Magdalen Graeme chanted from time to 
time in a low voice a part of some one of those beautiful 
old Latin hymns which belong to the Catholic service, 
muttered an Ave or a Credo, and so passed on, lost in de- 
votional contemplation. The meditations of her grandson 
were more bent on mundane matters ; and many a time as 
a moor-fowl arose from the heath and shot along the moor, 
uttering his bold crow of defiance, he thought of the jolly 
Adam Woodcock and his trusty goshawk ; or, as they 
passed a thicket where the low trees and bushes were in- 
termingled with tall fern, furze and broom, so as to form a 
thick and intricate cover, his dreams were of a roebuck 
and a brace of gaze-hounds. But frequently his mind re- 
turned to the benevolent and kind mistress whom he had 
left behind him offended justly, and unreconciled by any 
effort of his. 

“My step would be lighter,” he thought, “and so would 
my heart, could I have but returned to see her for one in- 
stant, and to say, Lady, the orphan boy was wild, but not 
ungrateful ! ” 

Travelling in these divers moods, about the hour of noon 
they reached a small straggling village, in which, as usual, 
were seen one or two of those predominating towers or 
peel-houses, which, for reasons of defence elsewhere de- 
tailed, were at that time to be found in every Border 
hamlet. A brook flowed beside the village, and watered 
the valley in which it stood. There was also a mansion at 


92 


THE ABBOT. 


the end of the village, and a little way separated from it, 
much dilapidated, and in very bad order, but appearing to 
have been the abode of persons of some consideration. 
The situation was agreeable, being an angle formed by the 
stream, bearing three or four large sycamore trees, which 
were in full leaf, and served to relieve the dark appearance 
of the mansion, which was built of a deep red stone. The 
house itself was a large one, but was now obviously too big 
for the inmates ; several windows were built up, espe- 
cially those which opened from the lower story : others 
were blockaded in a less substantial manner. The court 
before the door, which had once been defended with a low 
outer-wall, now ruinous, was paved, but the stones were 
completely covered with long gray nettles, thistles, and other 
weeds, which, shooting up betwixt the flags, had displaced 
many of theq:! from their level. Even matters demanding 
more peremptory attention had been left neglected, in a 
manner which argued sloth or poverty in the extreme. 
The stream, undermining a part of the bank near an angle of 
the ruinous wall, had brought it down, with a corner turret, 
the ruins of which lay in the bed of the river. The current, 
interrupted by the ruins which it had overthrown, and 
turned yet nearer to the site of the tower, had greatly en- 
larged the breach it had made, and was in the process of 
undermining the ground on which the house itself stood 
unless it were speedily protected by sufficient bulwarks. 

All this attracted Roland Graeme’s observation as they 
approached the dwelling by a winding path, w^hich gave 
them at intervals a view^ of it from different points. 

“ If we go to yonder house,” he said to his mother, “ I 
trust it is but for a short visit. It looks as if two rainy 
days from the northwest would send the whole into the 
brook.” 

“ You see but with the eyes of the body,” said the old 
woman ; “ God will defend his own, though it be forsaken 
and despised of men. Better to dwell on the sand, under 
his law, than fly to the rock of human trust.” 

As she thus spoke, they entered the court before the old 
mansion, and Roland could observe that the front of it had 
formerly been considerably ornamented with carved work, 
in the same dark-colored freestone of which it was built. 
But all these ornaments had been broken down and de- 
stroyed, and only the shattered vestiges of niches and en- 
tablatures now strewed the place which they had once 
occupied. The larger entrance in front was walled up, but 


THE ABBOT. 


93 


a little footpath, which, from its appearance, seemed to be 
rarely trodden, led to a small wicket, defended by a door 
well clinched with iron-headed nails, at which Magdalen 
Graeme knocked three times, pausing betwixt each knock, 
until she heard an answering tap from within. At the last 
knock, the wicket was opened by a pale thin female, who 
said, Benedicti qui venient in nomine Domini." They en- 
tered, and the portress hastily shut behind them the wicket, 
and made fast the massive fastenings by which it was 
secured. 

The female led the way through a narrow entrance into 
a vestibule of some extent, paved with stone, and having 
benches of the same solid material ranged around. At the 
upper end was an oriel window, but some of the intervals 
formed by the stone shafts and mullions were blocked up, 
so that the apartment was very gloomy. 

Here they stopped, and the mistress of the mansion, for 
such she was, embraced Magdalen Graeme, and greeting 
her by the title of sister, kissed her with much solemnity 
on either side of the face. 

“ The blessing of Our Lady be upon you, my sister,” 
were her next words ; and they left no doubt upon 
Roland’s mind respecting the religion of their hostess, 
even if he could have suspected his venerable and zealous 
guide of resting elsewhere than in the habitation of an or- 
thodox Catholic. They spoke together a few, words in 
private, during which he had leisure to remark more par- 
ticularly the appearance of his grandmother’s friend. 

Her age might be betwixt fifty and sixty ; her looks had 
a mixture of melancholy and unhappiness that bordered 
on discontent, and obscured the remains of beauty which 
age had still left on her features. Her dress was of the 
plainest and most ordinary description, of a dark color, and, 
like Magdalen Graeme’s, something approaching to a re- 
ligious habit. Strict neatness and cleanliness of person 
seemed to intimate, that if poor, she was not reduced to 
squalid or heart-broken distress, and that she was still suf- 
ficiently attached to life to retain a taste for its decencies, 
if not its elegances. Her manner, as well as- her features 
and appearance, argued an original condition and educa- 
tion far above the meanness of her present appearance. 
In short, the whole figure was such as to excite the idea, 
“ That female must have had a history worth knowing.” 
While Roland Graeme was making this very reflection, the 
whispers of the two females ceased, and the mistress of the 


94 


THE ABBOT. 


mansion, approaching him, looked on his face ajid person 
with much attention, and, as it seemed, some interest. 

“This, then,” she said, addressing his relative, “is the 
child of thine unhappy daugliter, sister Magdalen ; and 
him, the only shoot from your ancient tree, you are willing 
to devote to the Good Cause ? ” 

“ Yes, by the rood,” answered Magdalen Graeme, in her 
usual tone of resolved determination, “ to the good cause I 
devote him, flesh and fell, sinew and limb, body and soul.” 

“Thou art a happy woman, sister Magdalen,” answered 
her companion, “ that, lifted so high above human affec- 
tion and human feeling, thou canst bind such a victim to 
the horns of the altar. Had I been called to make such 
sacrifice — to plunge a youth so young and fair into the 
plots and bloodthirsty dealings of the time, not the patri- 
arch Abraham, when he led Isaac up the mountain, would 
have rendered more melancholy obedience.” 

She then continued to look at Roland with a mournful 
aspect of compassion, until the intentness of her gaze oc- 
casioned his color to rise, and he was about to move out of 
its influence, when he was stopped by his grandmother 
with one hand, while with the other she divided the hair 
upon his forehead, which was now crimson with bashful- 
ness, while she added, with a mixture of proud affection 
and firm resolution — “ Ay, look at him well, my sister, for 
on a fairer face thine eye never rested. I too, when I first 
saw him, after a long separation, felt as the worldly feel, 
and was half shaken in my purpose. But no wind can 
tear a leaf from the withered tree which has long been 
stripped of its foliage, and no mere human casualty can 
awaken the mortal feelings which have long slept in the 
calm of devotion.” 

While the old woman thus spoke, her manner gave the 
lie to her assertions, for the tears rose to her eyes w’hile 
she added, “ But the fairer and the more spotless the vic- 
tim, is it not, my sister, the more worthy of acceptance?” 
She seemed glad to escape from the sensations which agi- 
tated her, and instantly added, “ He will escape, my sister 
— there will be a ram caught in the thicket, and the hand 
of our revolted brethren shall not be on the youthful 
Joseph. Heaven can defend its own rights, even by means 
of babes and sucklings, of women and beardless boys.” 

“ Heaven hath left” us,” said the other female ; “ for our 
sins and our fathers’ the succors of the blessed saints have 
abandoned this accursed land. We may win the crown of 


THE ABBOT, 


95 


martyrdom, but not that of earthly triumph. One, too, 
whose prudence was at this deep crisis so. indispensable, 
has been called to a better world. The Abbot Eustatius 
is no more.” 

“ May his soul have mercy!” said Magdalen Graeme, 
“ and may Heaven, too, have mercy upon us, who linger 
behind in this bloody land 1 His loss is indeed a perilous 
blow to our enterprise ; for who remains behind possess- 
ing his far-fetched experience, his self-devoted zeal, his 
consummate wisdom, and his undaunted courage ? He 
hath fallen with the church’s standard in his hand, but 
God will raise up another to lift the blessed banner. 
Whom have the Chapter elected in his room ? ” 

“ It is rumored no one of the few remaining brethren 
dare accept the office. The heretics have sworn that they 
will permit no future election, and will heavily punish any 
attempt to create a new Abbot of Saint Mary’s. Conjurav- 
erunt inter se principes^ dicentes, Projiciamiis laqueos ejus." 

^'Quousque^ Domine P ' — ejaculated Magdalen; “this, my 
sister, were indeed a perilous and fatal breach in our 
band ; but I am firm in my belief, that another will^ arise 
in the place of him so untimely removed. Where is thy 
daughter Catherine ?” 

“In the parlor,” answered the matron, “but” She 

looked at Roland Graeme, and muttered something in the 
ear of her friend. 

“Fear it not,” answered Magdalen Graeme, “it is both 
lawful and necessary— fear nothing from him— I would he 
were as well grounded in the faith by which alone comes 
safety, as he is free from thought, deed, or speech of vil- 
lany. Therein is the heretics’ discipline to be commended, 
my sister, that they train up their youth in strong moral- 
ity, and choke up every inlet to youthful folly.” 

It is but a cleansing of the outside of the cup, an- 
swered her friend, “a whitening of the sepulchre ; but he 
shall see Catherine, since you, my sister, judge it safe and 
meet.— Follow us, youth,” she added, and led the way from 
the apartment with her friend. These w'ere the only words 
which the matron had addressed to Roland Graeme, who 
obeyed them in silence. As they paced through several 
winding passages and waste apartments wita a very ^ow 
step, the young page had leisure to make some reflec- 
tions on his situation— reflections of a nature which his 
ardent temper considered as specially disagreeable. It 
seemed he had now got two mistresses, or tutoresses, in- 


96 


THE ABBOT, 


Stead of one, both elderly women, and both, it would 
seem, in league to direct his motions according to their 
own pleasure, and for the accomplishment of plans to 
which he was no party. This,- he thought, was too much ; 
arguing reasonably enough, that whatever right his grand- 
mother and benefactress had to guide his motions, she 
was neither entitled to transfer her authority, or to divide 
it with another, who seemed to assume, without ceremony, 
the same tone of absolute command over him. 

“ But it shall not long continue thus,” thought Roland ; 
“ I will not be all my life the slave of a woman’s whistle, 
to go when she bids, and come when she calls. No, by 
Saint Andrew ! the hand that can hold the lance is above 
the control of the distaff. I will leave them the slipp’d 
collar in their hands on the first opportunity, and let 
them execute their own devices by their own proper force. 
It may save them both from peril, for I guess what they 
meditate is not likely to prove either safe or easy — the 
Earl of Murray and his heresy are too well rooted to be 
grubbed up by two old women.” 

As he thus resolved, they entered a low room, in which a 
third female was seated. This apartment was the first he 
had observed in the mansion which was furnished with 
movable seats, and with a wooden table, over which was 
laid a piece of tapestry. A carpet was spread on the 
floor, there was a grate in the chimney, and, in brief, the 
apartment had the air of being habitable and inhabited. 

But Roland’s eyes found better employment than to 
make observations on the accommodations of the cham- 
ber; for this second female inhabitant of the mansion 
seemed something very different from anything he had 
yet seen there. At his first entry she had greeted with a 
silent and low obeisance the two aged matrons, then glanc- 
ing her eyes toward Roland, she adjusted a veil which 
hung back over her shoulders, so as to bring it over her 
face ; an operation which she performed with much mod- 
esty, but without either affected haste or embarrassed 
timidity. 

During this manoeuvre Roland had time to observe that 
the face was that of a girl apparently not much past six- 
teen, and that the eyes were at once soft and brilliant. 
To these very favorable observations was added the cer- 
tainty, that the fair object to whom they referred possessed 
an excellent shape, bordering perhaps on embonpoint,, and 
therefore rather that of a Hebe than of a Sylph, but beau- 


THE ABBOT. 


97 


tifully formed, and shown to great advantage by the close 
jacket and petticoat which she wore after a foreign fash- 
ion, the last not quite long enough to conceal a very 
pretty foot, which rested on a bar of the table at which 
she sat ; her round arms and taper fingers very busily 
employed in repairing the piece of tapestry which was 
spread on it, which exhibited several deplorable fissures, 
enough to demand the utmost skill of the most expert 
seamstress. 

It is to be remarked, that it was by stolen glances that 
Roland Graeme contrived to ascertain these interesting 
particulars ; ’and he thought he could once or twice, not- 
withstanding the texture of the veil, detect the damsel in 
the act of taking similar cognizance of his own person. 
The matrons in the meanwhile continued their separate 
conversation, eying from time to time the young people, 
in a manner which left Roland in no doubt that they were 
the subject of their conversation. At length he distinctly 
heard Magdalen Graeme say these words — “ Nay, my sister, 
we must give them opportunity to speak together, and to 
become acquainted ; they must be personally known to 
each other, or how shall they be able to execute what they 
are intrusted with ?” 

It seemed as if the matron, not fully satisfied with her 
friend’s reasoning, continued to offer some objections ; but 
they were borne down by her more dictatorial friend. 

“ It must be so,” she said, “ my dear sister ; let us there- 
fore go forth on the balcony, to finish our conversation. — 
And do you,” she said, addressing Roland and the girl, 
“become acquainted with each other.” 

With this she stepped up to the young woman, and 
raising her veil, discovered features which, whatever might 
be their ordinary complexion, were now covered with a 
universal blush. 

“ Licitum sit^" said Magdalen, looking at the other matron. 

“ Vix licitum^' replied the other, with reluctant and hesi- 
tating acquiescence ; and again adjusting the veil of the 
blushing girl, she dropped it so as to shade, though not to 
conceal her countenance, and whispered to her, in a tone 
loud enough for the page to hear, “ Remember, Catherine, 
who thou art, and for what destined.” 

The matron then retreated with Magdalen Graeme 
through one of the casements of the apartment, that 
opened on a large broad balcony, which, with its ponder- 
ous balustrade, had once run along the whole south front 

7 


98 


THE ABBOT. 


of the building which faced the brook, and formed a pleas^ 
ant and commodious walk in the open air. It was now 
in some places deprived of the balustrade, in others broken 
and narrowed ; but, ruinous as it was, could still be used 
as a pleasant promenade. Here then walked the two 
ancient dames, busied in their private conversation ; yet 
not so much so, but that Roland could observe the matrons, 
as their thin forms darkened the casement in passing or 
repassing before it, dart a glance into the apartment, to 
see how matters were going on there. 


CHAPTER ELEVENTH. 

Life hath its May, and it is mirthful then ; 

The woods are vocal, and the flowers all odor ; 

Its very blast has mirth in’t — and the maidens, 

The while they don their cloaks to screen their klrtles, 

Laugh at the rain that wets them. 

Old Play. 

Catherine was at the happy age of innocence and 
buoyancy of spirit, when, after the first moment of embar- 
rassment was over, a situation of awkwardness, like that 
in which she was suddenly left to make acquaintance with 
a handsome youth not even known to her by name, struck 
her, in spite of herself, in a ludicrous point of view. She 
bent her beautiful eyes upon the work with which she was 
busied, and with infinite gravity sat out the two first 
turns of the matrons upon the balcony ; but then, glancing 
her deep blue eye a little toward Roland, and observing 
the embarrassment under which he labored, now shifting 
on his chair, and now dangling his cap, the whole man 
evincing that he was perfectly at a loss how to open the 
conversation, she could keep her composure no longer, 
but after a vain struggle broke out into a sincere, though 
a very involuntary fit of laughing, so richly accompanied 
by the laughter of her merry eyes, which actually glanced 
through the tears which the effort filled them with, and by 
the waving of her rich tresses, that the goddess of smiles 
herself never looked more lovely than Catherine at that 
moment. A court page would not have left her long alone 
in her mirth ; but Roland was country-bred, and, besides, 
having some jealousy as well as bashful ness, he took it 
into his head that he was himself the object of her inex- 


THE ABBOT, 


99 


tinguishable laughter. His endeavors to sympathize with 
Catherine, therefore, could carry him no farther than a 
forced giggle, which had more of displeasure than of mirth 
in it, and which so much enhanced that of the girl, that it 
seemed to render it impossible for her ever to bring her 
laughter to an end, with whatever anxious pains she labored 
to do so. For every one has felt, that when a paroxysm of 
laughter has seized him at a misbecoming time and place, 
the efforts which he makes to suppress it, nay, the very 
sense of the impropriety of giving way to it, tend only to 
augment and prolong the irresistible impulse. 

It was undoubtedly lucky for Catherine, as well as for 
Roland, that the latter did not share in the excessive mirth 
of the former. For seated as she was, with her back to 
the casement, Catherine could easily escape the observa- 
tion of the two matrons during the course of their prom- 
enade ; whereas Graeme was so placed, with his side to the 
window, that his mirth, had he shared that of his com- 
panion, would have been instantly visible, and could not 
have failed to give offence to the personages in question. 
He sat, however, with some impatience, until Catherine 
had exhausted either her power or her desire of laughing, 
and was returning with good grace to the exercise of her 
needle, and then he obser\’^ed, with some dryness, that 
“ there seemed no great occasion to recommend to them 
to improve their acquaintance, as it seemed that they were 
already tolerably familiar.” 

Catherine had an extreme desire to set off upon a fresh 
score, but she repressed it strongly, and fixing her eyes on 
her work, replied by asking his pardon, and promising to 
avoid future offence. 

Roland had sense enough to feel that an air of offended 
dignity was very much misplaced, and that it was with a 
very different bearing he ought to meet the deep blue 
eyes which had borne such a hearty burden in the laughing 
scene. He tried, therefore, to extricate himself as well as 
he could from his blunder, by assuming a tone of corres- 
pondent gayety, and requesting to know of the nymph, 
“ how it was her pleasure that they should proceed in im- 
proving the acquaintance which had commenced so mer- 
rily*" 

“That,” she said, “you must yourself discover ; perhaps 
I have gone a step too far in opening our interview.” 

“Suppose,” said Roland Graeme, “we should begin as 
in a tale-book, by asking each other’s names and histories. ’ 


lOO 


THE ABBOT. 


“It is right well imagined,” said Catherine, “and shows 
an argute judgment. Do you begin, and 1 will listen, and 
only put in a question or two at the dark parts of the 
story. Come, unfold then your name and history, my new 
acquaintance.” 

“ I am called Roland Graeme, and that tall old woman 
is my grandmother.” 

“And your tutoress ? — good. Who are your parents ?” 

“ They are both dead,” replied Roland. 

“ Ay, but who were they ? you Jiad parents, I presume ? ” 

“I suppose so,” said Roland, “but I have never been 
able to learn much of their history. My father was a 
Scottish knight, who died gallantly in his stirrups — my 
mother was a Graeme of Heathergill, in the Debatable 
Land — most of her family were killed when the Debat- 
able country was burned by the Lord Maxwell and Herries 
of Caerlaverock.” 

“ Is it long ago ? ” said the damsel. 

“ Before I was born,” answered the page. 

“That must be a great while since,” said she, shaking 
her head gravely ; “ look you, I cannot weep for them.” 

“It needs not,” said the youth, “they fell with honor.” 

“So much for your lineage, fair sir,” replied his com- 
panion, “ of whom I like the living specimen (a glance at 
the casement) far less than those that are dead. Your much 
honored grandmother looks as if she could make one weep 
in sad earnest. And now, fair sir, for your own person — 
if you tell not the tale faster, it will be cut short in the 
middle ; Mother Bridget pauses longer and longer every 
time she passes the window, and with her there is as little 
mirth as in the grave of your ancestors.” 

“ My tale is soon told — I was introduced into the Castle 
of Avenel to be page to the lady of the mansion.” 

“ She is a strict Huguenot, is she not ? ” said the maiden. 

“ As strict as Calvin himself. But my grandmother can 
play the Puritan when it suits her purpose, and she had 
some plan of her own, for quartering me in the castle — 
it would have failed, however, after we had remained sev- 
eral weeks at the hamlet, but for an unexpected master of 
ceremonies” 

“ And who was that ? ” said the girl. 

“A large black dog. Wolf by name, who brought me into 
the castle one day in his mouth, like a hurt wild duck, and 
presented me to the lady.” 

“A most respectable introduction, truly,” said Cathe- 


THE ABBOT. 


loi 


rine ; “ and what might you learn at this same castle ? I 
love dearly to know what my acquaintances can do at 
need.” 

“To fly a hawk, hollow to a hound, back a horse, and 
wield lance, bow% and brand.” 

And to boast of all this when you have learned it,” said 
Catherine, “ which, in France at least, is the surest accom- 
plishment of a page. But proceed, fair sir; how came 
your Huguenot lord and your no less Huguenot lady to 
receive and keep in the family so perilous a person as a 
Catholic page ? ” 

“ Because they knew not that part of my history, which 
from infancy I have been taught to keep secret — and be- 
cause my grand-dame’s former zealous attendance on their 
heretic chaplain had laid all this suspicion to sleep, most 
fair Callipolis,” said the page ; and in so saying, he edged 
his chair toward the seat of the fair querist. 

“Nay, but keep your distance, most gallant sir,” 
answered the blue-eyed maiden ; “ for, unless I greatly 
mistake, these reverend ladies will soon interrupt our 
amicable' conference, if the acquaintance they recommend 
shall seem to proceed beyond a certain point — so, fair sir, 
be pleased to abide by your station, and reply to my ques- 
tions. — By what achievements did you prove the qualities 
of a page, which you had thus happily acquired ?” 

Roland, who began to enter into the^tone and spirit of the 
damsel’s conversation, replied to her with becoming spirit. 

“ In no feat, fair gentlewoman, was I found inexpert, 
wherein there was mischief implied. I shot swans, hunted 
cats, frightened serving-women, chased the deer, and rob- 
bed the orchard. I say nothing of tormenting the chaplain 
in various ways, for that was my duty as a good Catholic.” 

“ Now, as I am a gentlewoman,” said Catherine, “ I think 
these heretics have done Catholic penance in entertaining 
so all-accomplished a serving-man ! And what, fair sir, 
might have been the unhappy event which deprived them 
of an inmate altogether so estimable ? ” 

“Truly, fair gentlewoman,” answered the youth, “your 
real proverb says that the longest lane will have a turning, 
and mine was more — it was, in fine, a turning off.” 

“Good ! ” said the merry young maiden, “it is an apt 
play on the word — and what occasion was taken for so im- 
portant a catastrophe ? Nay, start not for my learning, I 
do know the schools — in plain phrase, why were you sent 
from service ? ” 


102 


THE ABBOT. 


The page shrugged his shoulders while he replied, — “ A 
short tale is soon told — and a short horse soon curried. I 
made the falconer’s boy taste of my switch— the falconer 
threatened to make me brook his cudgel— he is a kindly 
clown as well as a stout, and I would rather have been 
cudgelled by him than any man in Christendom to choose 
—but I knew not his qualities at that time— so I threatened 
to make him brook the stab, nnd my Lady made me brook 
the ‘ Begone so adieu to the page’s office and the fair 
Castle of Avenel— I had not travelled far before I met my 
venerable parent — And so tell your tale, fair gentlewoman, 
for mine is done.” 

“A happy grandmother,” said the maiden, “who had 
the luck to find the stray page just when his mistress had 
slipped his leash, and a most lucky page that has jumped 
at once from a page to an old lady’s gentleman-usher ! ” 

“ All this is nothing of your history,” answered Roland 
Graeme, who began to be much interested in the congenial 
vivacity of this facetious young gentlewoman, — “ tale for 
tale is fellow-traveller’s justice.” 

“ Wait till we are fellow-travellers then,” replied Cathe- 
rine. 

“Nay, you escape me not so,” said the page ; “if you 
deal not justly by me, I will call out to Dame Bridget, or 
whatever your dame be called, and proclaim you for a 
cheat.” 

“You shall not need,” answered the maiden — “my his- 
tory is the counterpart of your own ; the same words might 
almost serve, change but dress and name. I am called 
Catherine Seyton, and I also am an orphan.” 

“ Have your parents been long dead ?” 

“This is the only question, ’’"said she, throwing down 
her fine eyes with a sudden expression of sorrow, “ that is 
the only question I cannot laugh at.” 

“ And Dame Bridget is your grandmother ? ” 

The sudden cloud passed away like that which crosses 
for an instant the summer sun, and she answered with her 
usual lively expression, “ Worse by twenty degrees — Dame 
Bridget is my maiden aunt.” 

“ Over gods forbode ! ” said Roland — “Alas! that you 
have such a tale to tell ! and what horror comes next ?” 

“Your own history, exactly. 1 was taken upon trial for 
service ” 

“ And turned off for pinching the duenna, or affronting 
my lady’s waiting-woman ? ” 


THE ABBOT. 


103 


“Nay, our history varies there,” said the damsel — “Our 
mistress broke up house, or had her house broke up, which 
is the same thing, and I am a free woman of the forest.” 

“And I am as glad of it as if any one had lined my 
doublet with cloth of gold,” said the youth. 

“ I thank you for your mirth,” said she, “but the matter 
is not likely to concern you.” 

“ Nay, but go on,” said the page, “for youVill be pres- 
ently interrupted ; the two good dames have been soaring 
yonder on the balcony, like two old hooded crows, and 
their croak grows hoarser as night comes on ; they will 
wing to roost presently. — This mistress of yours, fair gen- 
tlewoman, who was she, in God’s name ? ” 

“Oh, she has a fair name in the world,” replied Cath- 
erine Seyton. “Few ladies kept a fairer house, or held 
more gentlewomen in her household ; my aunt Bridget 
was one of her housekeepers. We never saw our mistress’s 
blessed face, to be sure, but we heard enough of her ; were 
up early and down late, and were kept to long prayers and 
light food.” 

“ Out upon the penurious old beldam ! ” said the page. 

“ For Heaven’s sake, blaspheme not ! ” said the girl, with 
an expression of fear. “God pardon us "both! I meant 
no harm. I speak of our blessed Saint Catherine of 
Sienna ! — may God forgive me that I spoke so lightly, and 
made you do a great sin and a great blasphemy. This was 
her nunnery, in which there were twelve nuns and an 
abbess. My aunt was the abbess, till the heretics turned 
all adrift.” 

“And where are your companions ?” asked the youth. 

“ With the last year’s snow,” answered the maiden ; 
“ east, north, south and west — some to France, some to 
Flanders, some, I fear, into the world and its pleasures. 
We have got permission to remain, or rather, our remain- 
ing has been connived at, for my aunt has great relations 
among the Kerrs, and they have threatened a death-feud 
if any one touches us ; and bow and spear are the best 
warrant in these times.” 

“Nay, then, you sit under a sure shadow,” said the 
youth ; “ and I suppose you wept yourself blind wdien 
Saint Catherine broke up housekeeping before you had 
taken arles * in her service ? ” 

“Hush! for Heaven’s sake,” said the damsel, crossing 


*A nglice — Earnest-money. 


104 


thp: abbot. 


herself ; “ no more of that ! but I have not quite cried my 
eyes out,” said she, turning them upon him, and instantly 
again bending them upon her work. It was one of those 
glances which would require the threefold plate of brass 
around the heart, more than it is needed by the mariners, 
to whom Horace recommends it. Our youthful page had 
no defence whatever to offer. 

“ What say you, Catherine,” he said, “ if we two, thus 
strangely turned out of service at the same time, should 
give our two most venerable duennas the torch to hold, 
while we walk a merry measure with each other over the 
floor of this weary world ? ” 

“A goodly proposal, truly,” said Catherine, “ and worthy 
the mad-cap brain of* a discarded page ! And what shifts 
does your worship propose we should live by ? — by singing 
ballads, cutting purses, or swaggering on the highway? 
for there, I think, you would find your most productive 
exchequer.” 

“ Choose, you proud peat ! ” said the page, drawing off 
in huge disdain at the calm and unembarrassed ridicule 
with which his wild proposal was received. And as he 
spoke the words,, the casement was again darkened by the 
forms of the matrons — it opened, and admitted Magdalen 
Graeme and the Mother Abbess, so we must now style her, 
into the apartment. 


CHAPTER TWELFTH. 

Nay, hear me, brother — I am elder, wiser, 

And holier than thou — And age, and wisdom, 

And holiness, have peremptory claims, 

And will be listen’d to. 

Old Play. 

When the matrons re-entered, and put an end to the con- 
versation which we have detailed in the last chapter. 
Dame Magdalen Graeme thus addressed her grandson and 
his pretty companion : “ Have you spoke together, my 
children ? — Have you become known to each other as 
fellow-travellers on the same dark and dubious road, 
whom chance hath brought together, and who study to 
learn the tempers and dispositions of those by whom their 
perils are to be shared ? ” 

It was seldom the light-hearted Catherine could sup- 


THE ABBOT 


105 

press a jest, so that she often spoke when she would have 
acted more wisely in holding her peace. 

“Your grandson admires the journey which you propose 
so very greatly, that he was even now preparing for setting 
out upon it instantly.” 

“This is to be too forward, Roland,” said the dame, ad- 
dressing him, “ as yesterday you were over slack— the just 
mean lies in obedience, which both waits for the signal to 
start, and obeys it when given.— But once again, my chil- 
dren, have you so perused each other’s countenances, that 
when you meet, in whatever disguise the times may impose 
upon you, you may recognize each in the other the secret 
agent of the mighty work in which you are to be leagued ? 
— Look at each other, know each line and lineament of 
each other’s countenance. Learn to distinguish by the 
step, by the sound of the voice, by the motion of the hand, 
by the glance of the eye, the partner whom Heaven hath 
sent to aid in working its wil). — Wilt thou know that 
maiden, whensoever or wheresoever you shall again meet 
her, my Roland Graeme ? ” 

As readily as truly did Roland answer in the affirmative. 
“ And thou, my daughter, wilt thou again remember the 
features of this youth?” 

“ Truly, mother,” replied Catherine Seyton, “ I have not 
seen so many men of late, that I should immediately for- 
get your grandson, though I mark not much about him 
that is deserving of special remembrance.” 

“Join hands, then, my children,” said Magdalen Graeme ; 
but, in saying so, was interrupted by her companion, 
whose conventual prejudices had been gradually giving 
her more and more uneasiness, and who could remain ac- 
quiescent no longer. 

“Nay, my good sister, you forget,” said she to Mag- 
dalen, “ Catherine is the betrothed bride of Heaven — 
these intimacies cannot be.” 

“ It is in the cause of Heaven that I command them to 
embrace,” said Magdalen, with the full force of her pow- 
erful voice ; “ the end, sister, sanctifies the means we must 
use.” 

“They call me Lady Abbess, or Mother at the least, who 
address me,” said Dame Bridget, drawing herself up, as if 
offended at her friend’s authoritative manner — “the Lady 
of Heathergill forgets that she speaks to the Abbess of 
Saint Catherine.” 

“When I was what you call me,” said Magdalen, “you 


io6 


THE ABBOT. 


indeed were the Abbess of Saint Catherine, but both names 
are now gone, with all the rank that the world and that 
the church gave to them ; and Ave are now, to the eye of 
human judgment, two poor, despised, oppressed women, 
dragging our dishonored old age to a humble grave. But 
what are we in the eye of Heaven ? — Ministers, sent forth 
to Avork his will — in whose Aveakness the strength of the 
church shall be manifested — before whom shall be hum- 
bled the wisdom of Murray, and the dark strength of 
Morton. — And to such wouldst thou apply the narroAV rules 
of thy cloistered seclusion ? — or, hast thou forgotten the 
order which I showed thee from thy Superior, subjecting 
thee to me in these matters ? ” 

“ On thy head, then, be the scandal and the sin,” said 
the Abbess, sullenly. 

“ On mine be they both,” said Magdalen. “ I say, em- 
brace each other, my children.” 

But Catherine, avv’^are, perhaps, how the dispute was 
likely to terminate, had escaped from the apartment, and 
so disappointed the grandson at least as much as the old 
matron. 

“ She is gone,” said the Abbess, “ to provide some little 
refreshment. But it will have little savor to those who 
dAvell in the world ; for I, at least, cannot dispense with 
the rules to which I am vowed, because it is the will of 
wicked men to break down the sanctuary in which they 
are wont to be observed.” 

“ It is well, my sister,” replied Magdalen, “to pay each 
even the smallest tithes of mint and cummin which the 
church demands, and I blame not thy scrupulous observ- 
ance of the rules of thine order. But they Avere established 
by the church, and for the church’s benefit ; and reason it 
is that they should give Avay when the salvation of the 
church herself is at stake.” 

The Abbess made no reply. 

One more acquainted with human nature than the inex- 
perienced page, might have found amusement in com- 
paring the different kinds of fanaticism which these tAvo 
females exhibited. The Abbess, timid, narroAV-minded, 
and discontented, clung to ancient usages and pretensions, 
which AA^ere ended by the Reformation ; and was in adver- 
sity, as she had been in prosperity, scrupulous, Aveak-spir- 
ited, and bigoted ; Avhile the fiery and more lofty spirit of 
her companion suggested a Avider field of effort, and Avould 
not be limited by ordinary rules in the extraordinary 


THE ABBOT. 


107 


schemes which were suggested by her bold and irregular 
imagination. But Roland Graeme, instead of tracing these 
peculiarities of character in the two old dames, only waited 
with great anxiety for the return of Catherine, expecting 
probably that the proposal of the fraternal embrace would 
be renewed, as his grandmother seemed disposed to carry 
matters with a high hand. 

His expectations, or hopes, if we may call them so, were, 
however, disappointed ; for, when Catherine re-entered on 
the summons of the Abbess, and placed on the table an 
eartlien pitcher of water, and four wooden platters, with 
cups of the same materials, the Dame of Heathergill, satis- 
fied with the arbitrary mode in which she had borne down 
the opposition of the Abbess, pursued her victory no 
farther — a moderation for which her grandson, in his heart, 
returned her but slender thanks. 

In the meanwhile, Catherine continued to place upon 
the table the slender preparations for the meal of a recluse, 
which consisted almost entirely of colewort, boiled and 
served up in a wooden platter, having no better seasoning 
than a little salt, and no better accompaniment than some 
coarse barley-bread, in very moderate quantity. The water- 
pitcher, already mentioned, furnished the only beverage. 
After a Latin grace, delivered by the Abbess, the guests 
sat down to their spare entertainment. The simplicity of 
the fare appeared to produce no distaste in the females, 
who ate of it moderately, but with the usual appearance 
of appetite. But Roland Graeme had been used to better 
cheer. Sir Halbert Glendinning, who affected even an 
unusual degree of nobleness in his house-keeping, main- 
tained it in a style of genial hospitality, which rivalled 
that of the Northern Barons of England. He might think, 
perhaps, that by doing so, he acted yet more completely 
the part for which he was born — that of a great Baron and 
a leader. Two bullocks, and six sheep, weekly, were the 
allowance when the Baron was at home, and the number 
was not greatly diminished during his absence. A boll of 
malt was weekly brewed into ale, which was used by the 
household at discretion. Bread was baked in proportion 
for the consumption of his domestics and retainers ; and 
in this scene of plenty had Roland Graeme now lived for 
several years. It formed a bad introduction to lukewarm 
greens and spring-water ; and probably his countenance 
indicated some sense of the difference, for the Abbess ob- 
served, “It would seem, my son, that the tables of the 


io8 


THE ABBOT. 


lierelic Baron, whom you have so long followed, are more 
daintily furnished than those of the suffering daughters of 
the church ; and yet, not upon the most solemn nights of 
festival, when the nuns were permitted to eat their portion 
at mine own table, did I consider the cates, which were 
then served up, as half so delicious as these vegetables and 
this water, on which I prefer to feed, rather than do aught 
which may derogate from the strictness of my vow. It 
shall never be said that the mistress of this house made it 
a house of feasting, when days of darkness and of affliction 
were hanging over the Holy Church, of which I am an un- 
worthy member.” 

‘‘Well hast thou said, my sister,” replied Magdalen 
Graeme ; “ but now it is not only time to suffer in the good 
cause, but to act in it. And since our pilgrim’s meal is 
finished, let us go apart to prepare for our journey to-mor- 
row, and to advise on the manner in which these children 
shall be employed, and what measures we can adopt to 
supply their thoughtlessness and lack of discretion.” 

Notwithstanding his indifferent cheer, the heart of 
Roland Graeme bounded high at this proposal, which he 
doubted not would lead to another tete-a-tcte betwixt him 
and the pretty novice. But he was mistaken. Catherine, 
it would seem, had no mind so far to indulge him ; for, 
moved either by delicacy or caprice, or some of those in- 
describable shades betwixt the one and the other, with 
which women love to tease, and at the same time to capti- 
vate, the ruder sex, she reminded the Abbess that it was 
necessary she should retire for an hour before vespers ; 
and, receiving the ready and approving nod of her Su- 
perior, she arose to withdraw. But before leaving the 
apartment, she made obeisance to the matrons, bending 
herself till her hands touched her knees, and then made a 
lesser reverence to Roland, which consisted in a slight 
bend of the body and gentle depression of the head. 
This she performed very demurely ; but the party on whom 
the salutation was conferred, thought he could discern in 
her manner an arch and mischievous exultation over his 
secret disappointment. — “Tiie devil take the saucy girl,” 
he thought in his heart, though the presence of the Abbess 
should have repressed all such profane imaginations, — 
“she is as hard-hearted as the laughing hyaena that the 
story-books tell of — she has a mind that I shall not forget 
her this night at least.” 

The matrons now retired also, giving the page to under- 


THE ABBOT. 


109 


Stand that he was on no account to stir from the convent, 
or to show himself at the windows, tlie Abbess assigning 
as a reason, the readiness with which the rude heretics 
caught at ever)! occasion of scandalizing the religious 
orders. 

“ This is worse than the rigor of Mr. Henry Warden him- 
self,” said the page, when he was left alone ; “for, to do 
him justice, however strict in requiring the most rigid at- 
tention during the time of his homilies, he left us to the 
freedom of our own wills afterward — ay, and would take 
a share in our pastimes, too, if he thought them entirely 
innocent. But these old women are utterly wrapt up in 
gloom, mystery, and self-denial. — Well, then, if I must 
neither stir out of the gate nor look out at window, I 
will at least see what the inside of the house contains that 
may help to pass away one’s time — peradventure I may 
light on that blue-eyed laughter in some corner or other.” 

Going, therefore, out of the chamber by the entrance 
opposite to that through which the two matrons had de- 
parted (for it may be readily supposed that he had no de- 
sire to intrude on their privacy), he wandered from one 
chamber to another, through the deserted edifice, seeking, 
with boyish eagerness, some source of interest or amuse- 
ment. Here he passed through a long gallery, opening on 
either hand into the little cells of the nuns, all deserted, 
and deprived of the few trifling articles of furniture which 
the rules of the order admitted. 

“ The birds are flown,” thought the page ; “but whether 
they will find themselves worse off in the open air than in 
these damp narrow cages, I leave my Lady Abbess and my 
venerable relative to settle betwixt them. I think the wild 
young lark whom they have left behind them, would like 
best to sing under God’s free sky.” 

A winding stair, strait and narrow, as if to remind the 
nuns of their duties of fast and maceration, led down to a 
lower suite of apartments, which occupied the ground 
story of the house. These rooms were even more ruin- 
ous than those which he had left, for, having encountered 
the first fury of the assailants by whom the nunnery had 
been wasted, the windows had been dashed in, the doors 
broken down, and even the partitions betwixt the apart- 
ments, in some places, destroyed. As he thus stalked from 
desolation to desolation, and began to think of returning 
from so uninteresting a research to the chamber which he 
had left, he was surprised to hear the low of a cow very 


no 


THE ABBOT. 


close to him. The sound was so unexpected at the time 
and place, that Roland Graeme started as if it had been the 
voice of a lion, and laid his hand on his dagger, while at 
the same moment the light and lovely form of Catherine 
Seyton presented itself at the door of the apartment from 
Avhich the sound had issued. 

“ Good even to you, valiant champion ! ” said she. “ Since 
the days of Guy of Warwick, never was one more worthy 
to encounter a dun cow.” 

“ Cow ? ” said Roland Graeme, “by my faith, I thought 
it had been the devil that roared so near me. Who ever 
heard of a convent containing a cow-house ?” 

“ Cow and calf may come hither now,” answered Cath- 
erine, “ for we have no means to keep out either. But I 
advise you, kind sir, to return to tlie place from whence 
you came.” 

“Not till I see your charge, fair sister,” answered Ro- 
land, and made his way into the apartment, in spite of the 
half-serious, half-laughing remonstrances of the girl. 

The poor solitary cow, now the only severe recluse with- 
in the nunnery, was quartered in a spacious chamber, which 
had once been the refectory of the convent. The roof was 
graced with groined arches, and the wall with niches, from 
which the images had been pulled down. These remnants 
of architectural ornaments were strangely contrasted with 
the rude crib constructed for the cow in one corner of the 
apartment, and the stack of fodder which was piled beside 
it for her food.* 

“ By my faith,” said the page, “ Crombie is more lordly 
lodged than any one here !” 

“You had best remain with her,” said Catherine, “and 
supply by your filial attentions the offspring she has had 
the ill luck to lose.” 

“I will remain, at least, to help you to prepare her 
night’s lair, pretty Catherine,” said Roland, seizing upon a 
pitchfork. 

“ By no means,” said Catherine ; “ for, besides that you 
know* not in the least how to do her that service, you will 
bring a chiding my way, and I get enough of that in the 
regular course of things.” 

“ What ! for accepting my assistance ? ” said the page, — 
“for accepting my assistance, who am to be your confeder- 
ate in some deep matter of import ? That were altogether 


Note E. Chapel of St. Bridget. 


THE ABBOT, 


III 


tmreasonable — and, now I think on it, tell me if you can, 
what is this mighty emprise to which I am destined?” 

“ Robbing a bird’s nest, I should suppose,” said Cather- 
ine, “considering the champion whom they have selected.” 

“ By my faith,” said the youth, “ and he that has taken 
a falcon’s nest in the Scaurs of Polmoodie, has done some- 
thing to brag of, my fair sister. — But that is all over now — 
a murrain on the nest, and the eyases and their food, 
washed or unwashed, for it was all anon of cramming these 
worthless kites that I^was sent upon my present travels. 
Save that I have met with you, pretty sister, I could eat 
my dagger-hilt for vexation at my own folly. But, as we 
are to be fellow-travellers ” 

“ Fellow-laborers ! not fellow-travellers !” answered the 
girl; “for, to your comfort be it known, that the Lady 
Abbess and I set out earlier than you and your respected 
relative to-morrow, and that I partly endure your company 
at present because it may be long ere we meet again.” 

“ By Saint Andrew, but it shall not though,” answered 
Roland ; “ I will not hunt at all unless we are to hunt in 
couples.” 

“ I suspect, in that and in other points, we must do as 
we are bid,” replied' the young lady. — “ But, hark ! I hear 
my aunt’s voice.” 

The old lady entered in good earnest, and darted a severe 
glance at her niece, while Roland had the ready wit to busy 
himself about the halter of the cow. 

“The young gentleman,” said Catherine gravely, “is 
helping me to tie the cow up faster to her stake, for I find 
that last night when she put her head out of window 
and lowed, she alarmed the whole village ; and we shall be 
suspected of sorcery among the heretics if they do not dis- 
cover the cause of the apparition, or lose our cow if they do.” 

“ Relieve vourself of that fear,” said the Abbess, some- 
what ironically ; “ the person to whom she is now sold 
comes for the animal presently.” 

Good-nighl, then, my poor companion,” said Catherine, 
patting the animal’s shoulders ; “ I hope thou hast fallen 
into kind hands, for my happiest hours of Late have been 
spent in tending thee — I would I had been born to no 

better task !” _ 

“Now, out upon thee, mean-spirited wench ! said tne 
Abbess ; “ is that a speech worthy of the name of Seyton, 
or of the mouth of a sister of this house, treading the padi 
of election— and to be spoken before a stranger youth. 


7' HE ABBOT. 


1 12 

too ? — Go to my oratory, minion — there read your Hours 
till I come thither, when I will read you such k lecture as 
shall make you prize the blessings which you possess.” 

Catherine was about to withdraw in silence, casting a 
half-sorrowful, half-comic, glance at Roland Graeme, which 
seemed to say — “You see to what your untimely visit has 
exposed me,” when, suddenly changing her mind, she came 
forward to the page, and extended her hand as she bid 
him good evening. Their palms had pressed each other 
ere the astonished matron could interfere, and Catherine 
had time to say — “ Forgive me, rfiother ; it is long since 
we have seen a face that looked with kindness on us. 
Since these disorders have broken up our peaceful retreat 
all has been gloom and malignity. I bid this youth kindly 
farewell, because he has come hither in kindness, and 
because the odds are great that we may never again meet 
in this world. I guess better than he that the schemes on 
which you are rushing are too mighty for your manage- 
ment, and that you are now setting the stone a-rolling 
which must surely crush you in its descent. I bid fare- 
well,” she added, “ to my fellow-victim ! ” 

This was spoken with a tone of deep and serious feel- 
ing, altogether different from the usual levity of Catherine’s 
manner, and plainly showed, that beneath the giddiness of 
extreme youth and total inexperience there lurked in her 
bosom a deeper power of sense and feeling than her con- 
duct had hitherto expressed. 

The Abbess remained a moment silent after she had left 
the room. The proposed rebuke died on her tongue, and 
she appeared struck with the deep and foreboding tone in 
which her niece had spoken her good-even. She led the 
way in silence to the apartment which they had formerly oc- 
cupied, and where there was prepared a small refection, as 
the Abbess termed it, consisting of milk and barley-bread. 
Magdalen Graeme, summoned to take share in this colla- 
tion, appeared from an adjoining apartment, but Cather- 
ine was seen no more. There was little said during the 
hasty meal, and after it was finished Roland Graeme was 
dismissed to the nearest cell, where some preparations had 
been made for his repose. 

The strange circumstances in which he found himself 
had their usual effect in preventing slumber from hastily 
descending on him, and he could distinctly hear, by a low 
but earnest murmuring in the apartment which he had 
left, that the matrons continued in deep consultation to a 


THE ABBOT. 


late hour. As they separated, he heard the Abbess dis- 
tinctly express herself thus : “ In a word, my sister, I ven- 
erate your character and the authority with which my 
Superiors have invested you ; yet it seems to me that ere 
entering on this perilous course, we should consult some 
of the Fathers of the Church.” 

'' where are we to find a faithful Bishop 
or Abbot at whom to ask counsel ? The faithful Eustatius 
IS no more — he is withdrawn from a world of evil and 
from the tyranny of heretics. May Heaven and our Lady 
assoilzie him of his sins, and abridge the penance of his 
mortal infirmities! Where shall we find another with 
whom to take counsel ? ” 

“ Heaven will provide for the Church,” said the Abbess ; 
^ and the faithful fathers who yet are suffered to remain 
in the house of Kennaquhair, will proceed to elect an 
Abbot. They will not suffer the staff to fall down, or the 
mitre to be unfilled, for the threats of heresy.” 

“That will I learn to-morrow,” said Magdalen Graeme ; 
“yet who now takes the office of an hour, save to partake 
with the spoilers in their work of plunder ?— to-morrow will 
tell us if one of the thousand saints who are sprung from 
the House of Saint Mary’s continues to look down on it 
in its mdsery.— Farewell, my sister— we meet at Edin- 
burgh.” 

“ Benedicite 1 ” answered the Abbess, and they parted 

“ To Kennaquhair and to Edinburgh we bend our way,” 
thought Roland Graeme. “ That information have I pur- 
chased by a sleepless hour — it suits well with my purpose. 
At Kennaquhair I shall see Father Ambrose ; -at Edin- 
burgh I shall find the means of shaping my own course 
through this bustling world, without burdening my affec- 
tionate relation— at Edinburgh, too, I shall see again the 
witching novice, with her blue eyes and her provoking 
smile.” — He fell asleep, and it was to dream of Catherine 
Seyton. 


8 


THE ABBOT. 


114 


CHAPTER THIRTEENTH. 

What, Dagon up agnin ? — I thought we had hurl’d him 
Down on the threshold, never more to rise. 

Bring wedge and axe ; and, neighbors, lend your hands 
And live the idol into winter fagots ! 

Athelstane, or the Converted Dane. 

Roland Gra:me slept long and sound, and the sun was 
high over the horizon, when the voice of his companion 
summoned him to resume their pilgrimage ; and when, 
hastily arranging his dress, he went to attend her call, the 
enthusiastic matron stood already at the threshold, pre- 
pared for her journey. There was in all the deportment 
of this remarkable woman a promptitude of execution, 
and a sternness of perseverance, founded on the fanaticism 
which she nursed so deeply, and which seemed to absorb 
all the ordinary purposes and feelings of mortality. One 
only human affection gleamed through her enthusiastic 
energies, like the broken glimpses of the sun through the 
rising clouds of a storm. It was her maternal fondness for 
her grandson— a fondness carried almost to the verge of do- 
tage, in circumstances where the Catholic religion was not 
concerned, but which gave way instantly when it chanced 
either to thwart or come in contact with the more settled 
purpose of her soul, and the more devoted duty of her life. 
Her life she would willingly have laid down to save the 
earthly object of her affection ; but that object itself she 
was ready to hazard, and would have been willing to sacri- 
fice, could the restoration of the Church of Rome have 
been purchased with his blood. Her discourse by the 
way, excepting on the few occasions in which her extreme 
love of her grandson found opportunity to display itself 
in anxiety for his health and accommodation, turned en- 
tirely on the duty of raising up the fallen honors of the 
Church, and replacing a Catholic sovereign on the throne. 
There were times at which she hinted, though very ob- 
scurely and distantly, that she herself was foredoomed by 
Heaven to perform a part in this important task ; and that 
she had more than mere human warranty for the zeal with 
which she engaged in it. But on this subject she expressed 
herself in such general language, that it was not easy to 
decide whether she made any actual pretensions to a direct 
and supernatural call, like the celebrated Elizabeth Bar- 


THE ABBOT. 


15 


ton, commonly called the Nun of Kent ; * or whether she 
only dwelt upon the general duty which was incumbent 
on all Catholics of the time, and the pressure of which she 
felt in an extraordinary degree. 

Yet though Magdalen Graeme gave no direct intimation 
of her pretensions to be considered as something beyond 
the ordinary class of mortals, the demeanor of one or 
two persons among the travellers whom they occasion- 
ally met, as they entered the more fertile and populous 
part of the valley, seemed to indicate their belief in her 
superior attributes. It is true, that two clowns, who drove 
before them a herd of cattle — one or two village wenches, 
who seemed bound for some merry-making — a strolling 
soldier, in a rusted morion, and a wandering student, as 
his threadbare black cloak and his satchel of books pro- 
claimed him — passed our travellers without observation, or 
with a look of contempt ; and, moreover, that two or three 
children, attracted by the appearance of a dress so nearly 
resembling that of a pilgrim, joined in hooting and call- 
ing, “ Out upon the mass-monger ! ” But one or two, 
who nourished in their bosoms respect for the downfallen 
hierarchy — casting first a timorous glance around, to see 
that no one observed them — hastily crossed themselves — 
bent their knee to Sister Magdalen, by which name they 
saluted her — kissed her hand, or even the hem of her dal- 
matique — received with humility the Benedicite with 
which she repaid their obeisance ; and then starting up, 
and again looking timidly round to see that they had 
been unobserved, hastily resumed their journey. Even 
while within sight of persons of the prevailing faith, 
there were individuals bold enough, by folding their 
arms and bending their head, to give distant and silent 
intimation that they recognized Sister Magdalen, and 
honored alike her person and her purpose. 

She failed not to notice to her grandson these marks of 
honor and respect which from time to time she received. 

“ You see,” she said, “ my son, that the enemies have 
been unable altogether to suppress the good spirit, or to 
root out the true seed. Amid heretics and schismatics, 

* A fanatic nun, called the Holy Maid of Kent, who pretended to the 
gift of prophecy and power of miracles. Having denounced the doom of 
speedy death against Henry VHI. for his marriage with Anne Boleyn, the 
prophetess was attainted in Parliament, and executed with her accomplices. 
Her imposture was for a time so successful, that even Sir Thomas More 
was disposed to be a believer. 


ii6 


THE ABBOT. 


spoilers of the church’s lands, and scoffers at saints and 
sacraments, there is left a remnant.” 

“It is true, my mother,” said Roland Graeme ; “but me- 
thinks they are of a quality which can help us but little. 
See you not all those who wear steel at their side, and 
bear marks of better quality, ruffle past as they would 
past the meanest beggars ? for those who give us any 
marks of sympathy are the poorest of the poor, and most 
outcast of the needy, who have neither bread to share with 
us, nor swords to defend us, nor skill to use them if they 
had. That poor wretch that last kneeled to you with 
such deep devotion, and who seemed emaciated by the 
touch of some wasting disease within, and the grasp of 
poverty without — that pale, shivering, miserable caitiff, 
how can he aid the great schemes you meditate ? ” 

“Much, my son,” said the matron, with more mildness 
than the page perhaps expected. “When that pious son 
of the church returns from the shrine of Saint Ringan, 
whither he now travels by my counsel, and by the aid of 
good Catholics, — when he returns, healed of his wasting 
malady, high in health, and strong in limb, will not the 
glory of his faithfulness, and its miraculous reward, speak 
louder in the ears of this besotted people of Scotland, 
than the din which is weekly made in a thousand heretical 
pulpits ? ” 

“Ay, but, mother, I fear the Saint’s hand is out. It is 
long since we have heard of a miracle performed at Saint 
Ringan’s.” 

The matron made a dead pause, and, with a voice trem- 
ulous with emotion, asked, “Art thou so unhappy as to 
doubt the power of the blessed Saint ? ” 

“Nay, mother,” the youth hastened to reply, “I believe 
as the Holy Church commands, and doubt not Saint 
Ringan’s power of healing ; but, be it said with reverence, 
he hath not of late showed the inclination.” 

“ And has this land deserved it ?” said the Catholic ma- 
tron, advancing hastily while she spoke, until she attained 
the summit of a rising ground, over which the path led, 
and then standing again still. “ Here,” she said, “ stood 
the Cross, the limits of the Halidome of Saint Mary’s— 
here — on this eminence — from which the eye of the holy 
pilgrim might first catch a view of that ancient monastery, 
the light of the land, the abode of saints, and the grave of 
monarchs — Where is now that emblem of our faith ? It 
lies on the earth — a shapeless block, from which the broken 


THE ABBOT, 


117 

fragments have been carried off, for the meanest uses, till 
now no semblance of its original form remains. Look 
toward the east, my son, where the sun was wont to glitter 
on stately spires — from which crosses and bells h)p.ve now 
been hurled, as if the land had been invaded once more 
by barbarous heathens. — Look at yonder battlements, of 
which we can, even at this distance, descry the partial de- 
molition ; and ask if this land can expect from the blessed 
saints, whose shrines and whose images have been pro- 
faned, any other miracles but those of vengeance ? How 
long,” she exclaimed, looking upward, “how long shall it 
be delayed ?” She paused, and then resumed with enthu- 
siastic rapidity, “Yes, my son, all on earth is but for a 
period — joy and grief, triumph and desolation, succeed 
each other like cloud and sunshine ; — the vineyard shall 
not be forever trodden down, the gaps shall be amended, 
and the fruitful branches once more dressed and trimmed. 
Even this day — ay, even this hour, I trust fo hear news of 
importance. Dally not — let us on — time is brief, and judg- 
ment is certain.” 

She resumed the path which led to the Abbey — a path 
which, in ancient times, was carefully marked out by posts 
and rails, to assist the pilgrim in his journey — these were 
now torn up and destroyed. A half-hour’s walk placed 
them in front of the once splendid Monastery, which, al- 
though the church was as yet entire, had not escaped the 
fury of the times. The long range of cells and of apart- 
ments for the use of the brethren, which occupied two 
sides of the great square, were almost entirely ruinous, the 
interior having been consumed by fire, which only the 
massive architecture of the outward walls had enabled 
them to resist. The Abbot’s house, which formed the 
third side of the square, was, though injured, still inhab- 
ited, and afforded refuge to the few brethren, who yet, 
rather by connivance than by actual authority, were per- 
mitted to remain at Kennaquhair. Their stately offices — 
their pleasant gardens — the magnificent cloisters con- 
structed for their recreation, were all dilapidated and 
ruinous ; and some of the building materials had appar- 
ently been put into requisition by persons in the village 
and in the vicinity, who, formerly vassals of the Monas- 
tery, had not hesitated to appropriate to themselves a part 
of the spoils. Roland saw fragments of Gothic pillars, 
richly carved, occupying the place of door-posts to the 
meanest huts ; and here and there a mutilated statue, in- 


ii8 


THE ABBOT. 


verted or laid on its side, made the door-post, or threshold, 
of a wretched cow-house. The church itself was less in- 
jured than the other buildings of the Monastery. But the 
images which had been placed in the numerous niches of 
its columns and buttresses, having all fallen under the 
charge of idolatry, to which the superstitious devotion of 
the Papists had justly exposed them, had been broken and 
thrown down, without much regard to the preservation of 
the rich and airy canopies and pedestals on which they 
were placed ; nor, if the devastation had stopped short at 
this point, could we have considered the preservation of 
these monuments of antiquity as an object to be put in the 
balance with the introduction of the reformed worship. 

Our pilgrims saw the demolition of these sacred and 
venerable representations of saints and angels — for as 
sacred and venerable they had been taught to consider 
them — with very different feelings. The antiquary may be 
permitted to regret the necessity of the action, but to Mag- 
dalen Graeme it seemed a deed of impiety, deserving the 
instant vengeance of heaven, — a sentiment in whicli her 
relative joined for the moment as cordially as herself. 
Neither, however, gave vent to their feelings in words, 
and uplifted hands and eyes formed their only mode of 
expressing them. The page was about to approach the 
great eastern gate of the church, but was prevented by his 
guide. “ That gate,” she said, “ has long been blockaded, 
that the heretical rabble may not know there still exist 
among the brethren of Saint Mary’s men who dare wor- 
ship where their predecessors prayed while alive and were 
interred when dead — follow me this way, my son.” 

Roland Graeme followed accordingly ; and Magdalen, 
casting a hasty glance to see whether they were observed 
(for she had learned caution from the danger of the times), 
commanded her grandson to knock at a little wdcket which 
she pointed out to him. “ But knock gently,” she added, 
with a motion expressive of caution. After a little space, 
during which no answer was returned, she signed to Roland 
to repeat his summons for admission ; and the door at 
length partially opening, discovered a glimpse of the thin 
and timid porter, by whom the duty was performed, skulk- 
ing from the observation of those who stood without ; but 
endeavoring at the same time to gain a sight of them with- 
out being himself seen. How different from the proud 
consciousness of dignity with which the porter of ancient 
days offered his important brow, and his goodly person, to 


THE ABBOT. 


119 


the pilgrims who repaired to Kennaqiihair ! His solemn 

I ntr ate., 7nei Jilii," was exchanged for a tremulous “You 
cannot enter now — the brethren are in their chambers.” 
But, when Magdalen Graeme asked, in an undertone of 
voice, “ Hast thou forgotten me, my brother ? ” he changed 
his apologetic refusal to “ Enter, my honored sister, enter 
speedily, for evil eyes are upon us.” 

They entered accordingly, and having waited until the 
porter had, with jealous haste, barred and bolted the 
wicket, were conducted by him through several dark and 
winding passages. As they walked slowly on, he spoke to 
the matron in a subdued voice, as if he feared to trust the 
very walls with the avowal which he communicated. 

“ Our Fathers are assembled in the Chapter-house, 
worthy sister — yes, in the Chapter-house — for the election 
of an Abbot. — Ah, Benedicitc ! there must be no ringing 
of bells — no high mass — no opening of the great gates 
now, that the people might see and venerate their spiritual 
Father ! Our Fathers must hide themselves rather like 
robbers who choose a leader, than godly priests who elect 
a mitred Abbot.” 

“Regard not that, my brother,” answered Magdalen 
Grseme ; “the first successors of Saint Peter himself were 
elected, not in sunshine, but in tempests — not in the halls 
of the Vatican, but in the subterranean vaults and dun- 
geons of heathen Rome — they were not gratulated with 
shouts and salvos of cannon-shot and of musketry, and the 
display of artificial fire — no, my brother— but by the 
hoarse summons of Lictors and Praetors, who came to drag 
the Fathers of the Church to martyrdom. From such ad- 
versity was the Church once raised, and by such will it 
now be purified. — And mark me, brother! not in the 
proudest days of the mitred Abbey, was a Superior ever 
chosen, whom his office shall so much honor, as he shall 
be honored, who now takes it upon him in these days 
of tribulation. On whom, my brother, will the choice 
fall?” 

“ On whom can it fall — or, alas ! who would dare to 
reply to the call, save the worthy pupil of the Sainted 
Eustatius— the good and valiant Father Ambrose ?” 

“ 1 know it,” said Magdalen ; “my heart told me long 
ere your lips had uttered his name. Stand forth, courage- 
ous champion, and man the fatal breach !— Rise, bold and 
experienced pilot, and seize the helm while the tempest 
rao-es ! — Turn back the battle, brave raiser of the fallen 


120 


THE ADBOT. 


Standard !— Wield crook and sling, noble shepherd of a 
scattered flock !” 

“ I pray you, hush, my sister ! ” said the porter, opening 
a door which led into the great church, “ the brethren will 
be presently here to celebrate their election with a solemn 
mass — I must marshal them the way to the high altar — all 
the offices of this venerable house have now' devolved on 
one poor decrepit old man.” 

He left the church, and Magdalen and Roland remained 
alone in that great vaulted space, whose style of rich, yet 
chaste architecture, referred its origin to the early part of 
the fourteenth century, the best period of Gothic building. 
But the niches were stripped of their images in the inside 
as well as the outside of the church ; and in the pell-mell 
havoc, the tombs of warriors and of princes had been in- 
cluded in the demolition of the idolatrous shrines. Lances 
and sw'ords of antique size, which had hung over the tombs 
of mighty warriors of former days, lay now strewed among 
relics, with which the devotion of pilgrims had graced 
those of their peculiar saints ; and the fragments of the 
knights and dames, w'hich had once lain recumbent, or 
kneeled in an attitude of devotion, where their mortal 
relics were reposed, w'ere mingled wdth those of the saints 
and angels of the Gothic chisel, which the hand of violence 
had sent headlong from their stations. 

The most fatal symptom of the whole appeared to be, 
that, though this violence had now been committed for 
many months, the Fathers had lost so totally all heart and 
resolution, that they had not adventured even upon clear- 
ing away the rubbish, or restoring the church to some decent 
degree of order. This might have been done without much 
labor. But terror had overpowered the scanty remains of 
a body once so powerful, and, sensible they were only suf- 
fered to remain in this ancient seat by connivance and 
from compassion, they did not venture upon taking any 
step which might be construed into an assertion of their 
ancient rights, contenting themselves wdth the secret and 
obscure exercise of their religious ceremonial, in as unos- 
tentatious a manner as was possible. 

Two or three of the more aged brethren had sunk under 
the pressure of the times, and the ruins had been partly 
cleared away to permit their interment. One stone had 
been laid over Father Nicholas, which recorded of him in 
special, that he had taken the vows during the incumbency 
of Abbot Ingelram, the period to which his memory so 


THE ABB07\ 


I2I 


frequently recurred. Another flag-stone, yet more recently 
deposited,^ covered the body of Philip the Sacristan, emi- 
nent for his aquatic excursion with the phantom of Avenel ; 
and a third, the most recent of all, bore the outline of a 
mitre, and the words Hie jacet Eustatius Abbas ; for no one 
dared to add a word of commendation in favor of his learn- 
ing, and strenuous zeal for the Roman Catholic faith. 

Magdalen Graeme looked at and perused the brief records 
of these monuments successively, and paused over that of 
Father Eustace. “In a good hour for thyself," she said, 
“ but oh ! in an evil hour for the Church, wert thou called 
from us. Let thy spirit be with us, holy man — encourage 
thy successor to tread in thy footsteps — give him thy bold 
and inventive capacity, thy zeal and thy discretion — even 
ihy piety exceeds not his." As she spoke, a side door, 
which closed a passage from the Abbot’s house into the 
church, was thrown open, that the Fathers might enter the 
choir, and conduct to the high altar the Superior whom 
they had elected. 

In former times, this was one of the most splendid of 
the many pageants which the hierarchy of Rome had de- 
vised to attract the veneration of the faithful. The period 
during which the Abbacy remained vacant, was a state of 
mourning, or, as their emblematical phrase expressed it, 
of widowhood ; a melancholy term, which was changed 
into rejoicing and triumph when a new Superior w^as 
chosen. When the folding-doors were on such solemn oc- 
casions throwm open, and the new Abbot appeared on the 
threshold in full-blowm dignity, with ring and mitre, and 
dalmatique and crosier, his hoary standard-bearers and his 
juvenile dispensers of incense preceding him, and the ven- 
erable train of monks behind him, wdth all besides which 
could announce the supreme authority to w^hich he was 
now raised, his appearance was a signal for the magnifi- 
cent jubilate to rise from the organ and music-loft, and to 
be joined by the corresponding bursts of Alleluiah from 
the whole assembled congregation. Now all was changed. 
In the midst of rubbish and desolation, seven or eight old 
men, bent and shaken as much by grief and fear as by age, 
shrouded hastily in the prescribed dress of their order, 
wandered like a procession of spectres, from the door 
wdiich had been thrown open, up through the encumbered 
passage, to the high altar, there to install their elected 
Superior a chief of ruins. It was like a band of bewildered 
travellers choosing a chief in the wdlderness of Arabia ; or 


122 


THE ABBOT. 


a shipwrecked crew electing a captain upon the barren 
island on which fate has thrown them. 

They who, in peaceful times, are most ambitious of au- 
thority among others, shrink from the competition at such 
eventful periods, when neither ease nor parade attend the 
possession of it, and when it gives only a painful pre- 
eminence both in danger and in labor, and exposes the 
ill-fated chieftain to the murmurs of his discontented asso- 
ciates, as well as to the first assault of the common enemy. 
But he on whom the office of the Abbot of Saint Mary s 
was now conferred, had a mind fitted for the situation to 
which he was called. Bold and enthusiastic, yet generous 
and forgiving — wise and skilful, yet zealous and prompt — 
he wanted but a better cause than the support of a decay- 
ing superstition, to have raised him to the rank of a tiuly 
great man. But as the end crowns the work, it also forms 
the rule by which it must be ultimately judged ; and those 
who, with sincerity and generosity, fight and fall in an 
evil cause, posterity can only compassionate as victims of 
a generous but fatal error. Among these we must rank 
Ambrosius, the last Abbot of Kennaquhair, whose designs 
must be condemned, as their success would have riveted 
on Scotland the chains of antiquated superstition and spir- 
itual tyranny ; but whose talents commanded respect, and 
whose virtues, even from the enemies of his faith, extorted 
esteem. 

The bearing of the new Abbot served of itself to dignify 
a ceremonial which was deprived of all other attributes of 
grandeur. Conscious of the peril in which they stood, and 
recalling, doubtless, the better days they had seen, there 
hung over his brethren an appearance of mingled terror, 
and grief, and shame, which induced them to hurry over 
the office in which they were engaged, as something at once 
degrading and dangerous. 

But not so Father Ambrose. His features, indeed, ex- 
pressed a deep melancholy, as he walked up the centre 
aisle, amid the ruin of things which he considered as holy, 
but his brow was undejected, and his step firm and solemn. 
He seemed to think that the dominion which he was about 
to receive depended in no sort upon the external circum- 
stances under which it was conferred ; and if a mind so 
firm was accessible to sorrow or fear, it was not on his own 
account, but on that of the Church to which he had de- 
voted himself. 

At length he stood on the broken steps of the high altar, 


TJIK ABBOT. 


123 


barefooted, as was the rule, and holding in his hand his 
pastoral staff, for the geirunedring and jewelled mitre had 
become secular spoils. No obedient vassals came, man 
after man, to make their homage, and to offer the tribute 
which should provide their spiritual Superior with palfrey 
and trappings. No Bishop assisted at the solemnity, to 
receive into the higher ranks of the Church nobility a dig- 
nitary whose voice in the legislature was as potential as 
his own. With hasty and maimed rites, the few remaining 
brethren stepped forward alternately to give their new 
Abbot the kiss of peace, in token of fraternal affection and 
spiritual homage. Mass was then hastily performed, but 
in such precipitation as if it had been hurried over rather 
to satisfy the scruples of a few youths, who were impatient 
to set out on a hunting party, than as if it made the most 
solemn part of a solemn ordination. The officiating priest 
faltered as he spoke the service, and often looked around 
as if he expected to be interrupted in the midst of his office ; 
and the brethren listened as to that which, short as it was, 
they wished yet more abridged.* 

These symptoms of alarm increased as the ceremony 
proceeded, and, as it seemed, were not caused by mere 
apprehension alone ; for, amid the pauses of the hymn 
there were lieard without sounds of a very different sort, 
beginning faintly, and at a distance, but at length approach- 
ing close to the exterior of the church, and stunning with 
dissonant clamor those engaged in the service. The wind- 
ing of horns, blown with no regard to harmony or concert ; 
the jangling of bells, the thumping of drums, the squeak- 
ing of bagpipes, and the clash of cymbals — the shouts of a 
multitude, now as in laughter, now as in anger — the shrill 
tones of female voices, and of those of children, mingling 
with the deeper clamor of men, formed a Babel of sounds, 
which first drowned, and then awed into utter silence, the 
official hymns of the Convent. The cause and result of 
this extraordinary interruption will be explained in the 
next chapter. 

* In Catholic countries, in order to reconcile the pleasures of the great 
with the observances of religion, it was common, when a party was bent 
for the chase, to celebrate mass, abridged and maimed of its rites, called 
a hunting mass, the brevity of which was designed to correspond with the 
impatience of the audience. 


124 


THE ABBOT. 


CHAPTER FOURTEENTH. 

Not the wild billow, when it breaks its barrier — 

Not the wild wind, escaping from its cavern — 

Not the wild fiend, that mingles both together, 

And pours their rage upon the ripening harvest, 

Can match the wild freaks of this mirthful meeting — 

Comic, yet fearful — droll, and yet destructive. 

The Conspiracy. 

The monks ceased their song, which, like that of the 
choristers in the legend of the Witch of Berkeley, died 
away in a quaver of consternation ; ^ and, like a flock of 
chickens disturbed by the presence of the kite, they at first 
made a movement to disperse and fly in different directions, 
and then, with despair, rather than hope, huddled them- 
selves around their new Abbot ; who, retaining the lofty 
and undismayed look which had dignified him through the 
whole ceremony, stood on the higher step of the altar as 
if desirous to be the most conspicuous mark on which 
danger might discharge itself, and to save his companions 
by his self-devotion, since he could afford them no other 
protection. 

Involuntarily, as it were, Magdalen Graeme and the page 
stepped from the station which hitherto they had occupied 
unnoticed, and approached to the altar, as desirous of shar- 
ing the fate which approached the monks, whatever that 
might be. Both bowed reverently low to the Abbot ; and 
while Magdalen seemed about to speak, the youth, looking 
toward the main entrance, at which the noise now roared 
most loudly, and which was at the same time assailed with 
much knocking, laid his hand upon his dagger. 

The Abbot motioned to both to forbear ; “ Peace, my 
sister,” he said in a low tone, but which, being in a differ- 
ent key from the tumultuary sounds without, could be dis- 

* [The “Witch of Berkeley,” — evidently referring to Southey’s Ballad, 
founded on a legend contained in Matthew of Westminster, A.D. 852, 
“ showing how an old woman rode double, and who rode before her,” 
“And the taper’s light was extinguish’d quite, 

And the choristers faintly sung. 

And the priests, dismay’d, panted and pray’d, 

And on all saints in Heaven for aid 
They call’d with trembling tongue. 

And in he came with eyes of flame, 

The Devil to fetch the dead.”] 


THE ABBOT. 


125 


tinctly heard, even amidst the tumult ; — “ Peace,*’ he said, 
“ my sister ; let the new Superior of St. Mary’s himself re- 
ceive and reply to the grateful acclamations of the vassals, 
who come to celebrate his installation. — And thou, my 
son, forbear, I charge thee, to touch thy earthly weapon ; 
— if it is the pleasure of our protectress, that her shrine be 
this day desecrated by deeds of violence, and polluted by 
blood-shedding, let it not, I charge thee, happen through 
the deed of a Catholic son of the church.” 

The noise and knocking at the outer gate became now 
every moment louder ; and voices were heard impatiently 
demanding admittance. The Abbot, with dignity, and 
with a step which even the emergency of danger rendered 
neither faltering nor precipitate, moved toward the portal, 
and demanded to know, in a tone of authority, “ who it 
was that disturbed their worship, and what they desired?” 

There was a moment’s silence, and then a loud laugh 
from without. At length a voice replied, “We desire en- 
trance into the church ; and when the door is opened you 
will soon see who we are.” 

“ By whose authority do you require entrance ? ” said 
the Father. 

“ By authority of the right reverend Lord Abbot of Un- 
reason,”* replied the voice from without ; and, from the 
laugh which followed, it seemed as if there was something 
highly ludicrous couched under this reply. 

“ I know not, and seek not to know, your meaning,!’ re- 
plied the Abbot, “ since it is probably a rude one. But 
begone, in the name of God, and leave his servants in 
peace. I speak this, as having lawful authority to com- 
mand here.” 

“ Open the door,” said another rude voice, “and we will 
try titles with you, Sir Monk, and show you a Superior we 
must all obey.” 

“ Break open the doors if he dallies any longer,” said a 
third, “and down with the carrion monks who would bar 
us of our privilege ! ” A general shout followed. “ Ay, 
ay, our privilege" ! our privilege ! down with the doors, and 
with the lurdane monks, if they make opposition ! ” 

The knocking was now exchanged for blows with great 
hammers, to which the doors, strong as they were, mustf 
soon have given way. But the Abbot, who saw resistance 
would be in vain, and who did not wish to incense the as- 


* Note F. The Abbot of Unreason. 


126 


THE ABBOT. 


sailants by an attempt at offering it, besought silence 
earnestly, and with difficulty obtained a hearing. “My 
children,” said he, “ I will save you from committing a 
great sin. The porter will presently undo the gate — he is 
gone to fetch the keys — meantime I pray you to consider 
with yourselves, if you are in a state of mind to cross the 
holy threshold.” 

“ Tilly vally for your papistry ! ” was answered from with- 
out ; “ we are in the mood of the monks when they are 
merriest, and that is when they sup beef-brewis for lenten- 
kail. So, if your porter hath not the gout, let him come 
speedily, or we heave away readily. — Said I well, com- 
rades ? ” 

“ Bravely said, and it shall be as bravely done,” said the 
multitude ; and had not the keys arrived at that moment, 
and the porter in hasty terror performed his office, throw- 
ing open the great door, the populace would have saved 
him the trouble. The instant he had done so, the affright- 
ed janitor fled, like one who has drawn the bolts of a flood- 
gate, and expects to be overwhelmed by the rushing inun- 
dation. The monks, with one consent, had withdrawn 
themselves behind the Abbot, who alone kept his station, 
about three yards from the entrance, showing no signs of 
fear or perturbation. His brethren — partly encouraged by 
his devotion, partly ashamed to desert him, and partly ani- 
mated by a sense of duty — remained huddled close together, 
at the back of their superior. There was aloud laugh and 
huzza when the doors were opened ; but, contrary to what 
might have been expected, no crowd of enraged assailants 
rushed into the church. On the contrary, there was a cry 
of “ A halt — a halt — to order, my masters ! and let the two 
reverend fathers greet each other, as beseems them.” 

The appearance of the crowd who were thus called to 
order, was grotesque in the extreme. It was composed of 
men, women, and children, ludicrously disguised in various 
habits, and presenting groups equally diversified and gro- 
tesque. Here one fellow with a horse’s head painted be- 
fore him, and a tail behind, and the whole covered with a 
long foot-cloth, which was supposed to hide the body of 
J;he animal, ambled, caracoled, pranced, and plunged, as he 
performed the celebrated part of the hobby-horse,* so often 
alluded to in our ancient drama ; and which still flourishes 
on the stage in the battle that concludes Bayes’s tragedy. 


* Note G. The Hobby-horse. 


THE ABBOT, 


127 


To rival the address and agility displayed by this character, 
another personage advanced, in the more formidable char- 
acter of a huge dragon, with gilded wings, open jaws, and 
a scarlet tongue, cloven at the end, which made various 
efforts to overtake and devour a lad, dressed as the lovely 
Sabaea, daughter of the King of Egypt, who fled before 
him ; while a martial St. George, grotesquely armed with 
a goblet for a helmet, and a spit for a lance, ever and anon 
interfered, and compelled the monster to relinquish his 
prey. A bear, a wolf, and one or two other wild animals, 
played their parts with the discretion of Snug the joiner ; 
for the decided preference which they gave to the use of 
their hind legs, was sufficient, without any formal annuncia- 
tion, to assure the most timorous spectators that they had to 
do with habitual bipeds. There was a group of outlaws, with 
Robin Hood and Little John at their head* — the best rep- 
resentation exhibited at the time ; and no great wonder, 
since most of the actors were, by profession, the banished 
men and thieves whom they presented. Other masquer- 
aders there were, of a less marked description. Men were 
disguised as women, women as men — children wore the 
dress of aged people, and tottered with crutch-sticks in 
their hands, furred gowns on their little backs, and caps on 
their round heads — while grandsires assumed the infantine 
tone as well as the dress of children. Besides these, many 
had their faces painted, and wore their shirts over the rest 
of their dress ; while colored pasteboard and ribbons fur- 
nished out decorations for others. Those who wanted all 
these properties, blacked their faces, and turned their 
jackets inside out ; and thus ^he transmutation of the whole 
assembly into asetof mad grotesque mummers was at once 
completed. 

The pause which the masqueraders made, waiting ap- 
parently for some person of the highest authority among 
them, gave those within the Abbey Church full time to 
observe all these absurdities. They were at no loss to 
comprehend their purpose and meaning. 

Few readers can be ignorant, that at an early period, and 
during the plenitude of her power, the Church of Rome 
not only connived at, but even encouraged, such saturnalian 
licenses as the inhabitants of Kennaquhair and the neigh- 
borhood had now in hand, and tliat the vulgar, on such 
occasions, were not only permitted but encouraged by a 

♦Note H. Robin Hood and Tattle John. 


128 


THE ABBOT. 


number of gambols, sometimes puerile and ludicrous, some- 
times immoral and profane, to indemnify themselves for 
the privations and penances imposed on them at other 
seasons. But, of all other topics for burlesque and ridi- 
cule, the rites and ceremonial of the church itself were most 
frequently resorted to ; and, strange to say, with the ap- 
probation of the clergy themselves. 

While the hierarchy flourished in full glory, they do not 
appear to have dreaded the consequences of suffering the 
people to become so irreverently familiar with things sa- 
cred ; they then imagined the laity to be much in the con- 
dition of a laborer’s horse, which does not submit to the 
bridle and the whip with greater reluctance, because, at 
rare intervals, he is allowed to frolic at large in his pas- 
ture, and fling out his heels in clumsy gambols at the mas- 
ter who usually drives him. But, when times changed — 
when doubt of the Roman Catholic doctrine, and hatred 
of their priesthood, had possessed the reformed party, the 
clergy discovered, too late, that no small inconvenience 
arose from the established practice of games and merry- 
makings, in which they themselves, and all they held most 
sacred, were made the subject of ridicule. It then became 
obvious to duller politicians than the Romish churchmen, 
that the same actions have a very different tendency when 
done in the spirit of sarcastic insolence and hatred, than 
when acted merely in exuberance of rude and uncontrol- 
lable spirits. They, therefore, though of the latest, en- 
deavored, where they had any remaining influence, to dis- 
courage the renewal of these indecorous festivities. In 
this particular, the Catholic clergy were joined by most of 
the reformed preachers, who were more shocked at the 
profanity and immorality of many of these exhibitions, 
than disposed to profit by the ridiculous light in which they 
placed the Church of Rome and her observances. But it 
was long ere these scandalous and immoral sports could be 
abrogated ; — the rude multitude continued attached to their 
favorite pastimes, and, both in England and Scotland, the 
mitre of the Catholic — the rochet of the reformed bishop — 
and the cloak and band of the Calvinistic divine — were, in 
turn, compelled to give place to those jocular personages, 
the Pope of Fools, the Boy-Bishop, and the Abbot of Un- 
reason.'^ 

It was the latter personage who now, in full costume, 

* From the interesting novel entitled Anastasius, by Thomas Hope (1820), 
it seems the same burlesque ceremonies were practised in the Greek Church. 


THE ABBOT. 


129 


made his approach to the great door of the church of 
Saint Mary’s, accoutred in such a manner as to form a 
caricature, or practical parody, on the costume and atten- 
dants of the real Superior, whom he came to beard on 
the very day of his installation, in the presence of his 
clergy, and in the chancel of his church. The mock dig- 
nitary was a stout-made under-sized fellow, whose thick 
squab form had been rendered grotesque by a supple- 
mental paunch, well stuffed. He wore a mitre of leather, 
with the front like a grenadier’s cap, adorned with mock 
embroidery, and trinkets of tin. This surmounted a vis- 
age the nose of which was the most prominent feature, 
being of unusual size, and at least as richly gemmed as 
his head gear. His robe was of buckram, and his cope 
of canvas, curiously painted, and cut into open work. On 
one shoulder was fixed the painted figure of an owl ; 
and he bore in the right hand his pastoral staff, and in the 
left a small mirror having a handle to it, thus resembling 
a celebrated jester, whose adventures, translated into 
English, were whilom extremely popular, and which may 
still be procured in black letter, for about one sterling 
pound per leaf. 

The attendants of this mock dignitary had their proper 
dresses and equipage, bearing the same burlesque resem- 
blance to the officers of the Convent which their leader 
did to the Superior. They followed their leader in reg- 
ular procession, and the motley characters, which had 
waited his arrival, noAV crowded into the church in his 
train, shouting as they came, — “A hall, a hall! for the 
venerable Father Howleglas, the learned Monk of Misrule, 
and the Right Reverend Abbot of Unreason ! ” 

The discordant minstrelsy of every kind renewed its din ; 
the boys shrieked and howled, and the men laughed and 
hallooed, and the women giggled and screamed, and the 
beasts reared, and the dragon walloped and hissed, and the 
hobby-horse neighed, pranced, and capered, and the rest 
frisked and frolicked, clashing their hobnailed shoes 
against the pavement, till it sparkled with the marks of 
their energetic caprioles. 

It was, in fine, a scene of ridiculous confusion, that 
deafened the ear, made the eyes giddy, and must have al- 
together stunned any indifferent spectator; the monks, 
whom personal apprehension and a consciousness that 
much of the popular enjoyment arose from the ridicule 
being directed against them, were, moreover, little com- 

9 


THE ABBOT. 


130 

forted by the reflection that, bold in their disguise, the 
mummers who whooped and capered around them. m?ght, 
on slight provocation, turn their jest into earnest, or at 
least proceed to those practical pleasantries, which at all 
times arise so naturally out of the frolicsome and mis- 
chievous disposition of the populace. They looked to 
their Abbot amid the tumult, with such looks as landsmen 
cast upon the pilot when the storm is at the highest — 
looks which express that they are devoid of all hope aris- 
ing from their own exertions, and not very confident in 
any success likely to attend those of their Palinurus. 

The Abbot himself seemed at a stand ; he felt no fear, 
but he was sensible of the danger of expressing his rising 
indignation, which he was scarcely able to suppress. He 
made a gesture with his hand as if commanding silence, 
which was at first only replied to by redoubled shouts and 
peals of wild laughter. When, however, the same motion, 
and as nearly in the same manner, had been made by 
Howleglas, it was immediately obeyed by his riotous com- 
panions, who expected fresh food for mirth in the conver- 
sation betwixt the real and the mock Abbot, having no 
small confidence in the vulgar wit and impudence of their 
leader. Accordingly, they began to shout, “ To it, fathers 
— to it ! ” — “ Fight monk, fight madcap — Abbot against Ab- 
bot is fair play, and so is reason against unreason, and 
malice against monkery ! ” 

“ Silence, my mates ! ” said Howleglas ; “ cannot two 
learned Fathers of the Church hold communion together, 
but you must come here with your bear-garden whoop and 
hollo, as if you were hounding forth a mastiff upon a mad 
bull ? I say silence ! and let this learned Father and me 
confer, touching matters affecting our mutual state and 
authority.” 

“My children” — said Father Ambrose. 

My children, too — and happy children they are ! ” said 
his burlesque counterpart ; “ many a wise child know'S not 
its own father, and it is well they have two to choose be- 
twixt.” 

“ If thou hast aught in thee, save scoffing and ribaldry,” 
said the real Abbot, “permit me, for thine own soul’s sake, 
to speak a few words to these misguided men.” 

“ Aught in me but scoffing, sayest thou ? ” retorted the 
Abbot of Unreason; “why, reverend brother, I have all 
that becomes mine office at this time a-day — I have beef, 
ale, and brandy-wine, with other condiments not worth 


THE ABBOT. 


31 


mentioning ; and for speaking, man — why, speak away, 
and we will have turn about like honest fellows.” 

During this discussion the wrath of Magdalen Graeme 
had risen to the uttermost ; she approached the Abbot, 
and placing herself by his side, said in a low and yet dis- 
tinct tone— “Wake and arouse thee. Father— the sword of 
Saint Peter is in thy hand— strike and avenge Saint Peter’s 
patrimony ! — Bind them in the chains which, being riveted 
by the Church on earth, are riveted in Heaven ” 

“ Peace, sister ! ” said the Abbot ; “ let not their madness 
destroy our discretion — I pray thee, peace, and let me do 
mine office. It is the first, peradventure it maybe the last 
time I shall be called on to discharge it.” 

“Nay, my holy brother!” said Howleglas, “I rede you, 
take the holy sister’s advice— never throve convent without 
woman’s counsel.” 

“Peace, vain man!” said the Abbot; “and you, my 
brethren ” 

“ Nay, nay ! ” said the Abbot of Unreason, no speaking 
to the lay people, until you have conferred with your 
brother of the cowl. • I swear by bell, book, and candle 
that no one of mv congregation shall listen to one word 
you have to say so you had as well address yourself to 

me, who will.” . , * 

To escape a conference so ludicrous, the Abbot again 
attempted an appeal to what respectful feelings might yet 
remain among the inhabitants of the Halidome, once so 
devoted to their spiritual superiors. Alas ! the Abbot of 
Unreason had only to flourish his mock crosier, and the 
whooping, the hallooing, and the dancing were renewed 
w^ith a vehemence which would have defied the lungs of 

^^“And now, my mates,” said the Abbot of Unreason, 
“once again dight your gabs and be hushed— let us see if 
the Cock of Kennaquhair will fight or flee the pit 

There was again a dead silence of expectation, of which 
Father Ambrose availed himself to address his antagonist, 
seeing plainly that he could gain an audience on no other 
terms. “ Wretched man ! ” said he, “ hast thou no better 
emplovment for thy carnal wit, than to employ it in lead- 
ing these blind and helpless creatures into the pit of utter 

“ Truly, my brother,” replied Howleglas, I can see little 
difference betwixt your employment and mine, save that 
you make a sermon of a jest, and I make a jest of a sermon. 


132 


THE ABBOT. 


“Unhappy being,” said the Abbot, “who hast no better 
subject of pleasantry than that which should make thee 
tremble — no sounder jest than thine own sins, and no bet- 
ter objects of laughter than those who can absolve thee 
from the guilt of them ! ” 

“Verily, my reverend brother,” said the mock Abbot, 
“what you say might be true, if, in laughing at hypocrites, 
I meant to laugh at religion. — Oh, it is a precious thing to 
wear a long dress with a girdle and a cowl ! — we become a 
holy pillar of Mother Church, and a boy must not play at 
ball against tlie walls for fear of breaking a painted win- 
dow ! ” . 

“ And will you, my friends,” said the Abbott, looking 
round and speaking with a vehemence which secured him 
a tranquil audience for some time — “ will you suffer a pro- 
fane buffoon, within the very church of God, to insult his 
ministers ? Many of you — all of you, perhaps — have lived 
under my holy predecessors, w^ho were called upon to rule 
in this church where I am called upon to suffer. If you 
have vrorldly goods, they are their gift ; and, when you 
scorned not to accept better gifts — the mercy and forgive- 
ness of the Church — were they not ever at your command ? 
— did we not pray while you were jovial — wake while you 
slept ? ” 

“ Some of the good wives of the Halidome were wont to 
say so,” said the Abbot of Unreason ; but his jest met in 
this instance but slight applause, and Father Ambrose, 
having gained a moment’s attention, hastened to improve it. 

“ What !” said he ; “ and is this grateful — is it seemlv — 
is it honest — to assail with scorn a few old men, from whose 
predecessors you hold all, and whose only wish is to die 
in peace among these fragments of what was once the 
light of the land, and whose daily prayer is, that they may 
be removed ere that hour comes when the last spark shall 
be extinguished, and the land left in the darkness which it 
has chosen rather than light ? We have not turned against 
you the edge of the spiritual sword, to revenge our tem- 
poral persecution ; the tempest of your wrath hath de- 
spoiled us of land, and deprived us almost of our daily 
food, but we have not repaid it with the thunders of ex- 
communication — we only pray your leave to live and die 
within the church which is our owm, invoking God, our 
Lady, and the Holy Saints to pardon your sins, and our 
own, undisturbed by scurril buffoonery and blasphemy.” 

This speech, so different in tone and termination from 


the abbot. 


133 

that which tlie crowd had expected, produced an effect 
upon th^r feelings unfavorable to the prosecution of theiJ 
trolic. Ihe morns-daiicers stood still-the hobby-horse 
surceased his capering— pipe and tabor were mute, and 
silence, like a heavy cloud,” seemed to descend on the 
once noisy rabble. Several of the beasts were obviously 
moved to compunction ; the bear could not restrain his 
sobs and a huge fox was observed to wipe his eyes with 
Ills tail. But in special -the dragon, lately so formidably 
rampant, now relaxed the terror of his claws, uncoiled his 
tremendous rings, and grumbled out of his fiery throat in 
a repentant tone, “ By the mass, I thought no harm in ex- 
ercising our old pastime, but an I hacTthought Bie g-ood 
Father would have taken it so to heart, I would as loon 
nave played your devil, as your dragon.” 

In this momentary pause, the Abbot stood among the 
miscellaneous and grotesque forms by which he was sur- 
rounded, triumphant as Saint Anthony, in Callot’s Temn- 
J Howleglas would not so resign his purpose 
And how now, my masters ! ” said he, “ is this fair play 
or no ? Have you not chosen me Abbot of Unreason, and 
IS It lavvful for any of you to listen to common sense to- 
day ? Was I not formally elected by you in solemn chap- 
ter, held in Luckie Martin’s change-house, and will you 
now desert me, and give up your old pastime and privileo-e ? 
.rlay out the play — and he that speaks the next word of 
sense or reason, or bids us think or consider, or the like of 
that which befits not the day, I will have him solemnly 
ducked in the mill-dam ! ” ^ 

The rabble, mutable as usual, huzzaed, the pipe and 
tabor struck up, the hobby-horse pranced, the beasts 
roared, and even the repentant dragon' began again to coil 
up his spires, and prepare himself for fresh gambols. But 
the Abbot might still have overcome, by his eloquence 
and his entreaties, the malicious designs of the revellers, 
had not Dame Magdalen Graeme given loose to the indio-- 
nation which she had long suppressed. ^ 

Scoffeis, she said, ‘‘and men of Belial — Blasphemous 

heretics, and truculent tyrants ” 

“ Your patience, my sister, I entreat and I command 
you ! ” said the Abbot ; “ let me do my duty— disturb me 
not in mine office ! ” 

But Dame Magdalen continued to thunder forth her 
threats in the name of Popes and Councils, and in the 
name of every Saint, from St. Michael downward. 


34 


THE ABBOT. 


“My comrades!” said the Abbot of Unreason, “this 
good dame hath not spoken a single word of reason, and 
therein may esteem herself free from the law. But what 
she spoke was meant for reason, and, therefore, unless she 
confesses and avouches all which she has said to be non - 
sense, it shall pass for such, so far as to incur our statutes. 
Wherefore, holy dame, pilgrim, or abbess, or w'hatever 
thou art, be mute with thy mummer}’-, or beware the mill- 
dam. We will have neither spiritual nor temporal scolds 
in our Diocese of Unreason !” 

As he spoke thus, he extended his hand toward the old 
woman, while his iollowers shouted, “ A doom — a doom ! ” 
and prepared to second his purpose, when lo 1 it was sud- 
denly frustrated. Roland Graeme had witnessed with 
indignation the insults offered to his old spiritual precep- 
tor, but yet had wit enough to reflect he could render him 
no assistance, but might well, by ineffective interference, 
make matters worse. But when he saw his aged relative 
in danger of personal violence, he gave way to the natural 
impetuosity of his temper, and, stepping forward, struck 
his poniard into the body of the Abbot of Unreason, whom 
the blow instantly prostrated on the pavement. 


CHAPTER FIFTEENTH. 

As when in tumults rise the ignoble crowd, 

Mad are their motions, and their tongues are loud. 

And stones and brands in rattling furies fly, 

And all the rustic arms which fury can supply — 

Then if some grave and pious man appear. 

They hush their noise and lend a listening ear. 

Dryden’s Virgil. 

A DREADFUL shout of Vengeance was raised by the revel- 
lers, whose sport was thus so fearfully interrupted ; but 
for an instant, the want of weapons amongst the multi- 
tude, as well as the inflamed features and brandished 
poniard of Roland Graeme, kept them at bay, while the 
Abbot, horror-struck at the violence, implored with up- 
lifted hands pardon for bloodshed committed within the 
sanctuary. Magdalen Graeme alone expressed triumph in 
tlie blow her descendant had dealt to the scoffer, mixed, 
however, with a wild and anxious expression of terror for 
her grandson’s safety. “Let him perish,” she said, “in 


77 //? ABBOT. 


135 

liis blasphemy let him die on the holy pavement which 
he has insulted ! ” 

But the rage of the multitude, the grief of the Abbot 
the exultation of the enthusiastic Magdalen, were all mis- 
timed and unnecessary. Howleglas, mortally wounded as 
he was supposed to be, sprung alertly up from the floor 
calling aloud, “ A miracle, a miracle, my masters I as brave 
a niiracle as ever was wrought in the kirk of Kennaquhair. 

\ uu p masters, as your lawfully chosen 

Abbot, that you touch no one without my command 

lou, wolf and bear, will guard this pragmatic youth, but 
wUhout hurting him— And you, reverend brother will 
with your comrades, withdraw to your cells ; for our con- 
ference has ended like all conferences, leaving each of his 
own mind as before; and if we fight, both you, and your 
brethren, and the Kirk, will have the worst on’t— Where- 
fore pack up your pipes and begone.” 

The hubbub was beginning again to awaken, but still 
bather Ambrose hesitated, as uncertain to what path his 
duty called him, whether to face out the present storm or 
to reserve himself for a better moment. His brother of 
Unreason observ^ed his difficulty, and said, in a tone more 
natural and less affected than that with which he had 
liitherto sustained his character, “ We came hither my 
good sir, more in mirth than in mischief— our bark is 
worse than our bite and, especially, we mean you no 
personal harm— wherefore, draw off while the play is 
good ; for it is ill whistling for a hawk when she is once 
on the soar, and worse to snatch the quarry from the ban- 
dog— Let these fellows once begin their brawl, and it will 
be too much for madness itself, let alone the Abbot of 
Unreason, to bring them back to the lure.” 

The brethren crowded around Father Ambrosius, and 
joined in urging him to give place to the torrent. ' The 
present revel was, they said, an ancient custom which his 
predecessors had permitted, and old Father Nicholas him- 
self had played the dragon in the days of the Abbot 
Inge Irani. 

“ And we now reap the fruit of the seed which they 
have so unadvisedly sown,” said Ambrosius ; “ they taught 
men to make a mock of what is holy, what wonder that 
the descendants of scoffers become robbers and plunder- 
ers ? But be it as you list, my brethren — move toward 
the dortour— And you, dame, I command vou, by the 
authority which I have over you, and by your respect for 


136 


THE ABBOT, 


that youth’s safety, that you go with us without farther 
speech — Yet, stay — what are your intentions toward that 
youth whom you detain prisoner ? — Wot ye,” he continued, 
addressing Howleglas in a stern tone of. voice, “that he 
bears the livery of the House of Avenel ? They who fear not 
the anger of Heaven, may at least dread the wrath of man.” 

“ Cumber not yourself concerning him,” answered How- 
leglas, “we know right well who and what he is.” 

“ Let me pray,” said the Abbot, in a tone of entreaty, 
“that you do him no wrong for the rash deed which he at- 
tempted in his imprudent zeal.” 

“ I say, cumber not yourself about it, father,” answered 
Howleglas, “ but move off with your train, male and fe- 
male, or I will not undertake to save yonder she-saint from 
the ducking-stool — And as for bearing of malice, my stom- 
ach has no room for it ; it is,” he added, clapping his hand 
on his portly belly, “ too well bumbasted out with straw and 
buckram— gramercy to them both — they kept out that mad- 
cap’s dagger as well as a Milan corselet could have done.” 

In fact, the home-driven poniard of Roland Graeme had 
lighted upon the stuffing of the fictitious paunch, which 
the Abbot of Unreason wore as a part of his characteristic 
dress, and it was only the force of the blow which had pros- 
trated that reverend person on the ground for a moment. 

Satisfied in some degree by this man’s assurances, and 
compelled to give way to superior force, the Abbot Am- 
brosias retired from the church at the head of the monks, 
and left the court free for the revellers to work their will. 
But, wild and wdlful as these rioters were, they accom- 
panied the retreat of the religionists with none of those 
shouts of contempt and derision with which they had at 
first hailed them. The Abbot’s discourse had affected some 
of them with remorse, others .with shame, and all with a 
transient degree of respect. They remained silent until 
the last monk had disappeared through the side-door which 
cornrnunicated with their dwelling-place, and even then it 
cost some exhortations on the part of Howleglas, some 
caprioles of the hobby-horse, and some wallops of the 
dragon, to rouse once more the rebuked spirit of revelry. 

“And how now, my masters?” said the Abbot of Un- 
reason ; “ and wherefore look on me with such blank Jack- 
a-Lent visages? Will you lose your old pastime for an old 
wife’s tale of saints and purgatory ? Why, I thought you 
would have made all split long since — Come, strike up, 
tabor and harp, strike up, fiddle and rebeck — dance and be 


THE ABBOT 


137 


merry to-day, and let care come to-morrow. Bear and 
wolf, look to your prisoner— prance, hobby— hiss, dragon, 
and halloo, boys — we grow older every moment we stand 
idle, and life is too short to be spent in playing mumchance.” 

This pithy exhortation was attended with the effect de- 
sired. They fumigated the church with burnt wool and 
feathers instead of incense, put foul water into the holy- 
water basins, and celebrated a parody on the church-service, 
the mock Abbot officiating at the altar ; they sung ludicrous 
and indecent parodies, to the tunes of church hymns ; they 
violated whatever vestments or vessels belonging to the 
Abbey they could lay their hands upon ; and, playing every 
freak which the whim of the moment could suggest to 
their wild caprice, at length they fell to more lasting deeds 
of demolition, pulled down and destroyed some carved 
wood-work, dashed out the painted windows which had es- 
caped former violence, and in their rigorous search after 
sculpture dedicated to idolatry, began to destroy what 
ornaments yet remained entire upon the tombs, and around 
the cornices of the pillars. 

The spirit of demolition, like other tastes, increases by 
indulgence ; from these lighter attempts at mischief, the 
more tumultuous part of the meeting began to meditate 
destruction on a more extended scale — “ Let us heave it 
down altogether, the old crow’s nest,” became a general 
cry among them ; “ it has served the Pope and his rooks 
too long ; ” and up they struck a ballad which was then 
popular among the lower classes.* 

“ The Paip, that pagan full of pride, 

Hath blinded us ower lang, 

For where the blind the blind doth lead, 

No marvel baith gae wrang. 

Like prince and king, 

He led the ring 
Of all iniquity. 

Sing hay trix, trim-go-trix, 

Under the greenwood tree. 

* These rude rhymes are taken, with some trifling alterations, from a 
ballad called Trim-go-trix. It occurs in a singular collection, entitled, “A 
Compendious Book of Godly and Spiritual Songs, collected out of sundrie 
parts of the Scripture, with sundry of other ballatis changed out of pro- 
phane sanges, for avoyding of sin and harlotrie, with Augmentation of 
sundrie Gude and Godly Ballates. Edinburgh, printed by Andro Hart.” 
This curious collection has been reprinted in Sir G. DalyelFs Scottish 
Poems of the sixteenth century. Edin. 1801, 2 vols. i2mo. [There is also 
a separate publication of “the Gude and Godly Ballates” from the earlier 
edition of 1578, at Edin. 1868, i2mo.] 


138 


THE ABBOT. 


“ The Bishop rich, he could not preach 
For sporting with the lasses ; 

The silly friar behoved to fleech 
For awmous as he passes : 

The curate his creed 
He could not read, — 

Shame fa’ the company ! 

Sing hay trix, trim-go-trix. 

Under the greenwood tree.” 

Thundering out this chorus of a notable hunting song, 
which had been pressed into the service of some polemical 
poet, the followers of the Abbot of Unreason were turning 
every moment more tumultuous, and getting beyond the 
management even of that reverend prelate himself, when a 
knight in full armor, followed by two or three men-at- 
arms, entered the church, and in a stern voice commanded 
them to forbear their riotous mummery. 

His visor was up, but if it had been lowered, the cogni- 
zance of the holly-branch sufficiently distinguished Sir 
Halbert Glendinning, who, on his homeward road, was 
passing through the village of Kennaquhair ; and moved, 
perhaps, by anxiety for his brother’s safety, had come di- 
rectly to the church on hearing of the uproar. 

“What is the meaning of this,” he said, “my masters ? 
are ye Christian men, and the King’s subjects, and yet 
waste and destroy church and chancel like so many 
heathens ? ” 

All stood silent, though .doubtless there were several 
disappointed and surprised at receiving chiding instead of 
thanks from so zealous a Protestant. 

The dragon, indeed, did at length take upon him to be 
spokesman, and growled from the depth of his painted 
maw, that they did but sweep Popery out of the church 
with the besom of destruction. 

“What! my friends,” replied Sir Halbert Glendinning, 
“ think you this mumming and masking has not more of 
Popery in it than have these stone walls ? Take the lep- 
rosy out of your flesh, before you speak of purifying stone 
walls — abate your insolent license, which leads but to idle 
vanity and sinful excess ; and know, that what you now 
practise, is one of the profane and unseemly sports intro- 
duced by the priests of Rome themselves, to mislead and 
to brutify the souls which fell into their net.” 

“ Marry come up — are you there with your bears ? ” mut- 
tered the dragon, with a draconic sullenness, which was in 
good keeping with his character ; “we had as good have 


THE ABBOT. 


139 


been Romans still, if we are to have no freedom in our 
pastimes ! ” 

“Dost thou reply to me so?” said Halbert Glendinning, 
“ or is there any pastime in grovelling on the ground there 
like a gigantic kail-worm ?— Get out of thy painted case 
or, by my knighthood, I will treat you like the beast and 
reptile you liave made yourself.” 

“ Beast and reptile ? ” retorted the offended dragon, “ set- 
ting aside your knighthood, I hold myself as well a born 
man as thyself.” 

The Knight made no answer in Tvords, but bestowed two 
such blows with the butt of his lance on the petulant drag- 
on, that had not the hoops which constituted the ribs of 
the machine been pretty strong, they would hardly have 
saved those of the actor from being broken. In all haste 
the masker crept out of his disguise, unwilling to abide a 
third buffet from the lance of the enraged Knight. And 
when the ex-dragon stood on the floor of the church, he 
presented to Halbert Glendinning the well-known counte- 
nance of Dan of the Howlethirst, an ancient comrade of 
his own, ere fate had raised him so high above the rank to 
which he was born. The clown looked sulkily upon the 
Knight, as if to upbraid him for his violence toward an old 
acquaintance, and Glendinning’s own good-nature re- 
proached him for the violence he had acted upon him. 

“ I did vrrong to strike thee,” he said, “ Dan ; but in 
truth, I knew thee not — thou wert ever a mad fellow — 
come to Avenel Castle, and we shall see how my hawks 

“And if we show him not falcons that will mount as 
merrily as rockets,” said the Abbot of Unreason, “ I would 
your honor laid as hard on my bones as you did on his 
even now.” 

“ How now. Sir Knave,” said the Knight, “ and what has 
brought you hither?” 

The Abbot, hastily ridding himself of the false nose 
which mystified his physiognomy, and the supplementary 
belly which made up his disguise, stood before his master 
in his real character, of Adam Woodcock, the falconer of 
Avenel. 

“How, varlet!” said the Knight; “hast thou dared to 
come here and disturb the very house my brother was 
dwelling in ?” 

“And it was even for that reason, craving your honor’s 
pardon, that I came hither — for I heard the country was to 


140 


THE ABBOT. 


be up to choose an Abbot of Unreason, and sure, thought 
I, 1 that can sing, dance, leap backward over a broad- 
sword, and am as good a fool as ever sought promotion, 
have all chance of carrying the office ; and if I gain my 
election, I may stand his honor’s brother in some stead, 
supposing things fall roughly out at the Kirk of Saint 
Mary’s.” 

“Thou art but a cogging knave,” said Sir Halbert, “and 
well I wot, that love of ale and brandy, besides the humor 
of riot and frolic, would draw thee a mile, when love of my 
house would not bring thee a yard. But, go to — carry 
thy roisterers elsewhere — to the alehouse if they list, and 
there are crowns to pay your charges — make out the day’s 
madness without doing more mischief, and be wise men 
to-morrow — and hereafter learn to serve a good cause 
better than by acting like buffoons or ruffians.” 

Obedient to his master’s mandate, the falconer was col- 
lecting his discouraged followers, and whispering into 
their ears — “ Away, away — face is Latin for a candle — 
never mind the good Knight’s puritanism — we will play 
the frolic out over a stand of double ale in Dame Martin 
the Brewster’s barn-yard — draw off, harp and tabor — bag- 
pipe and drum — mum till you are out of the churchyard, 
then let the welkin ring again — move on, wolf and bear — 
keep the hind legs till you cross the kirk-stile, and then 
show yourselves beasts of mettle — what devil sent him 
here to spoil our holiday ! — but anger him not, my hearts , 
his lance is no goose-feather, as Dan’s ribs can tell.” 

“ By my soul,” said Dan, “ had it been another than my 
ancient comrade, I would have made my father’s old fox* 
fly about his ears ! ” 

“Hush ! hush ! man,” replied Adam Woodcock, “not a 
word that way, as you value the safety of your bones — 
what, man ? we must take a clink as it passes, so it is not 
bestowed in downright ill-will.” 

“ But I will take no such thing,” said Dan of the How- 
lethirst, suddenly resisting the efforts of Woodcock, who 
was dragging him out of the church ; when the quick 
military eye of Sir Halbert Glendinning detecting Roland 
Graeme betwixt his two guards, the Knight exclaimed, 
“Soho! falconer — Woodcock — knave, hast thou brought 
my Lady’s page in mine own livery, to assist at this hope- 
ful revel of thine, Avith your wolves and bears ? Since you 


*Fox. An old-fashioned broadsword was often so called. 


THE ABBOT. 


I4r 

were at such mummings, you might, if you would, have at 
least saved the credit of my household, by dressing him 
up as a jackanapes — bring him hither, fellows ! ” 

Adam Woodcock was too honest and downright to per- 
mit blame to light upon the youth, when it was undeserved. 

I swear,” he said, “ by St. Martin of Bullions” * 

“ And what hast thou to do with Saint Martin ? ” 

“Nay, little enough, sir, unless when he sends such 
rainy days that we cannot fly a hawk— but I say to your 
worshipful knighthood, that as I am a true man ” 

“As you are a false varlet, had been the better obtesta- 
tion.” 

“ Nay, if your knighthood allows me not to speak,” said 
Adam, “ I can hold my tongue — but the 'boy came not 
hither by my bidding, for all that.” 

“ But to gratify his own malapert pleasure, I warrant 
me,” said Sir Halbert Glendinning — “Come hither, young 
springald, and tell me whether you have your mistress’s 
license to be so far absent from the castle, or to dishonor my 
livery by mingling in such a May-game ? ” 

“ Sir Halbert Glendinning,” answered Roland Graeme 
with steadiness, “ I have obtained the permission, or rather 
the commands, of your lady, to dispose of my time here- 
after according to my own pleasure. I have been a most 
unwilling spectator of this May-game, since it is your 
pleasure so to call it ; and I only wear your livery until I 
can obtain clothes which bear no such badge of servi- 
tude.” 

“How am I to understand this, young man ?” said Sir 
Halbert Glendinning ; “ speak plainly, for I am no reader 
of riddles. — That my lady favored thee, I know. What 
hast thou done to disoblige her, and occasion thy dis- 
missal ? ” 

“ Nothing to speak of,” said Adam Woodcock, answering 
for the boy — “a foolish quarrel with me, which was more 
foolishly told over again to my honored lady, cost the 
poor boy his place. For my part, I will say freely, that 
I was wrong from beginning to end, except about the 
washing of the eyas’s meat. There I stand to it that I was 
right.” 

With that, the good-natured falconer repeated to his 
master the whole history of the squabble which had 
brought Roland Graeme into disgrace with his mistress, 

* The Saint Swithin, or weeping Saint of Scotland. If St. Martin’s 
festival f4th July) prove wet, forty days of rain are expected. 


142 


THE ABBOT. 


but in a manner so favorable for the page, that Sir Hal- 
bert could not but suspect his generous motive. 

“ Thou art a good-natured fellow,” he said, “ Adam 

Woodcock.” . , » , j r 

“ As ever had falcon upon fist, said Adam j and, tor 
that matter, so is Master Roland ; but, being half a gentle- 
man bv office, his blood is soon up, and so is mine. 

“ Well,” said Sir Halbert, “ be it as it will, my lady has 
acted hastily, for this was no great matter of offence to 
discard the lad whom she had trained up for years , but 
he, I doubt not, made it worse by his prating— it jumps 
well with a purpose, however, which 1 had in my mind. 
Draw off these people. Woodcock, — and you, Roland 
Grseme, attend me.” 

The page followed him in silence into the Abbot s house, 
where, stepping into the first apartment which he found 
open, he commanded one of his attendants to let his brother, 
Master Edward Glendinning, know that he desired to speak 
with him. The men-at-arms went gladly off to join their 
comrade, Adam Woodcock, and the jolly crew whom he 
had assembled at Dame Martin’s, the hostler’s wife, and 
the Page and Knight were left alone in the apartment. 
Sir Halbert Glendinning paced the floor for a moment in 
silence, and then thus addressed his attendant— 

“Thou mayst have remarked, stripling, that 1 have but 
seldom distinguished thee by much notice ; — I see thy 
color rises, but do not speak till thou hearest me out. I 
say I have never much distinguished thee, not because I 
did not see that in thee which I might well have praised, 
but because I saw something blamable, which such 
praises might have made worse. Thy mistress, dealing 
according to her pleasure in her own household, as no one 
had better reason or title, had picked thee from the rest, 
and treated thee more like a relation than a domestic ; and 
if thou didst show some vanity and petulance under such 
distinction, it were injustice not to say that thou hast 
profited both in thy exercises and in thy breeding, and 
hast shown many sparkles of a gentle and manly spirit. 
Moreover, it were ungenerous, having bred thee up freak- 
ish and fiery, to dismiss thee to want or wandering, for 
showing that very peevishness and impatience of discipline 
which arose from thy too delicate nurture. Therefore, 
and for the credit of my own household, I am determined 
to retain thee in my train, until I can honorably dispose 
of thee elsewhere, with a fair prospect of thy going 


THE ABBOT. 


143 


through the world with credit to the house that brought 
thee up.” 

If there was something in Sir Halbert Glendinning’s 
speech which flattered Roland’s pride, there was also much 
that, according to his mode of thinking, was an alloy to 
the compliment. And yet his conscience instantly told 
him that he ought to accept, with grateful deference, the 
offer which was made him by the husband of his kind pro- 
tectress ; and his prudence, however slender, could not 
but admit he should enter the world under very different 
auspices as a retainer of Sir Halbert Glendinning, so 
famed for wisdom, courage, and influence, from those 
under which he might partake the wanderings, and be- 
come an agent in the visionary schemes, for such they ap- 
peared to him, of Magdalen, his relative. Still, a strong 
reluctance to re-enter a service from which he had been 
dismissed with contempt, almost counterbalanced these 
considerations. 

Sir Halbert looked on the youth with surprise, and re- 
sumed — “You seem to hesitate, young man. Are your 
own prospects so inviting, that you should pause ere you 
accept those which I should offer to you ? or, must I re- 
mind you, that although you have offended your benefac- 
tress, even to the point of her dismissing you, yet I am 
convinced, the knowledge that you have gone unguided 
on your own wild way, into a world so disturbed as ours 
of Scotland, cannot, in the upshot, but give her sorrow 
and pain ; from which it is, in gratitude, your duty to pre- 
serve her, no less than it is in common wisdom your duty 
to accept my offerecf protection, for your own sake, where 
body and soul are alike endangered, should you refuse it.” 

Roland Graeme replied in a respectful tone, but at the 
same time with some spirit, “ I am not ungrateful for such 
countenance as has been afforded me by the Lord of Avenel, 
and I am glad to learn, for the first time, that I have not 
had the misfortune to be utterly beneath his observation, 
as I had thought — And it is only needful to show me how 
I can testify my duty and my gratitude toward my early 
and constant benefactress with my life’s hazard, and I will 
gladly peril it.” He stopped. 

“ These are but words, young man,” answered Glendin- 
ning ; “ large protestations are often used to supply the 
place of effectual service. I know nothing in which the 
peril of your life can serve the Lady of Avenel ; I can only 
say, she will be pleased to learn you have adopted some 


144 


THE ABBOT, 


course which may insure the safety of your person, and 
the weal of your soul — What ails you, that you accept not 
that safety when it is oifered you ? ” 

“ My only relative who is alive,” answered Roland, “at 
least the only relative whom I have ever seen, has rejoined 
me since I was dismissed from the Castle of Avenel, and I 
must consult with her whether I can adopt the line to 
which you now call me, or whether her increasing infirmi- 
ties, or the authority which she is entitled to exercise over 
me, may not require me to abide with her.” 

“ Where is this relation ? ” said Sir Halbert Glendin- 
ning. 

“ In this house,” answered the page. 

“ Go then and seek her out,” said the Knight of Avenel ; 
“ more than meet it is that thou shouldst have her appro- 
bation, yet worse than foolish would she show herself in 
denying it.” 

Roland left the apartment to seek for his grandmother ; 
and, as he retreated, the Abbot entered. 

The two brothers met as brothers who loved each other 
fondly, yet meet rarely together. Such indeed was the 
case. Their mutual affection attached them to each other ; 
but in every pursuit, habit, or sentiment, connected with 
the discords of the times, the friend and counsellor of 
Murray stood opposed to the Roman Catholic priests ; 
nor, indeed, could they have held very much society to- 
gether, without giving cause of offence and suspicion to 
their confederates on each side. After a close embrace 
on the part of both, and a welcome on that of the Abbot, 
Sir Halbert Glendinning expressed his.satisfaction that he 
had come in time to appease the riot raised by Howleglas 
and his tumultuous followers. 

“And yet,” he said, “when I look on your garments, 
brother Edward, I cannot help thinking there still remains 
an Abbot of Unreason within the bounds of the Monas- 
tery.” 

“And wherefore carp at my garments, brother Hal- 
bert ?” said the Abbot ; “ it is the spiritual armor of my 
calling, and, as such, beseems me as well as breastplate 
and baldric become your own bosom.” 

“Ay, but there were small wisdom, methinks, in putting 
on armor where we have no power to fight ; it is but a 
dangerous temerity to defy the foe whom we cannot re- 
sist.” 

“ For that, my brother, no one can answer,” said the Ab' 


thp: abbot. 


145 

bot, “until the battle be fought ; and, were it even as you 
say, niethinks a brave man, though desperate of victory 
would rather desire to fight and fail, than to resign sword 
and shield on some mean and dishonorable composition 
with his insulting antagonist. But, let not you and me 
make discord of a theme on which we cannot agree, but 
rather stay and partake, though a heretic, of my admission 
feast. You need not fear, my brother, that your zeal for 
restoring the primitive discipline of the church will, on 
this occasion, be offended with the rich profusion of a 
conventual banquet. The days of our old friend Abbot 
Boniface are over ; and the Superior of Saint Mary’s has 
neither forests nor fishings, woods nor pastures, nor corn- 
fields — neither flocks nor herds, bucks nor wild-fowl — gran- 
aries of wheat, nor storehouses of oil and wine, of ale 
and of mead. The refectioner’s office is ended ; and sucli 
a meal as a hermit in romance can offer to a wandering 
knight, is all we have to set before you. But, if you will 
share it with us, we shall eat it with a cheerful heart, and 
thank you, my brother, for your timely protection against 
these rude scoffers.” 

“My dearest brother,” said the Knight, “it grieves me 
deeply I cannot abide with you ; but it would sound ill 
for us both were one of the reformed congregation to sit 
down at your admission feast ; and, if I can ever have the 
satisfaction of affording you effectual protection, it will be 
much owing to my remaining unsuspected of countenan- 
cing or approving your religious rites and ceremonies. It 
will demand whatever consideration I can acquire among 
my own friends, to shelter the bold m.an, who, contrary to 
law and the edicts of parliament, has dared to take up the 
office of Abbot of Saint Mary’s.” 

“ Trouble not yourself whh the task, my brother,” re- 
plied Father Ambrosius. “ I would lay down my dearest 
blood to know that you defended the church for the church’s 
sake ; but, while you remain unhappily her enemy, I 
would not that you endangered your own safety, or dimin- 
ished your own comforts, for the sake of my individual 
protection — But who comes hither to disturb the few 
minutes of fraternal communication which our evil fate 
allows us ? ” 

. The door of the apartment opened as the Abbot spoke, 
and Dame Magdalen entered. 

“ Who is this woman ? ” said Sir Halbert Glendinning, 
somewhat sternly, “ and what does she want ? ” 


JO 


146 


THE .IB nor. 


“That you know me not,” said the matron, “signifies 
little ; I come by your own order, to give my free consent 
that the stripling, Roland Graeme, return to your service ; 
and, having said so, I cumber you no longer with my pres- 
ence. Peace be with you ! ” "She turned to go away, but 
was stopped by the , inquiries of Sir Halbert Glendin- 
ning. 

Who are you ? — what are you ? — and why do you not 
await to make me answer?” 

“I was,” she replied, “while yet I belonged to the 
world, a matron of no vulgar name ; now I am Magdalen, 
a poor pilgrimer for the sake of Holy Kirk.” 

“Yea,” said Sir Halbert, “art thou a Catholic? I 
thought my dame said that Roland Graeme came of re- 
formed kin.” 

“ His father,” said the matron, “was a heretic, or rather 
one who regarded neither orthodoxy nor heresy — neither 
the temple of the church or of antichrist. I, too, for the 
sins of the times make sinners, have seemed to conform 
to your unhallowed rites — but I had my dispensation and 
my absolution.” 

“You see, brother,” said Sir Halbert, with a smile of 
meaning toward his brother, “that we accuse you not 
altogether without grounds of mental equivocation.” 

“ My brother, you do us injustice,” replied the Abbot ; 
this woman, as her bearing may of itself warrant you, is 
not in her perfect mind. Thanks, I must needs say, to the 
persecution of your marauding barons, and of your latitu- 
dinarian clergy.” 

“1 will not dispute the point,” said Sir Halbert ; “the 
evils of the time are unhappily so numerous, that both 
churches may divide them and have enow to spare ” So 
saying he leaned from the window of the apartment and 
winded his bugle. 

brother?” said the 

Abbot ; we have spent but few minutes together ” 

“Alas!” said the elder brother, “and even these few 
have been sullied by disagreement. I sound to horse, mv 
brother-the rather that, to avert the consequences o'f 
US day s rashness on your part, requires hasty efforts on 
mine—Dame, you will oblige me by letting vour young 
relative know that we mount instantly. I intend not that 
he shall return to Avenel with me— it would lead to new 
quarrels betwixt him and my household ; at least to taunts 
which his proud heart could ill brook, and my wish is to 


THE ABBOT. 


H7 


do him kindness. He shall, therefore, go forward to Ed- 
inburgh with one of my retinue, whom I shall send back 
to say what has chanced here. You seem rejoiced at 
this ? ” he added, fixing his eyes keenly on Magdalen 
Graeme, who returned his gaze \\dth calm indifference. 

“ I would rather,” she said, “ that Roland, a poor and 
friendless orphan, were the jest of the world at large than 
of the menials at Avenel.” 

“ Fear not, dame — he shall be scorned by neither,” an- 
swered the Knight. 

“ It may be,” she replied — “ It may well be — but I will 
trust more to his own bearing than to your countenance.” 
She left the room as she spoke. 

The Knight looked after her as she departed, but turned 
instantly to his brother, and, expressing in the most affec- 
tionate terms his wishes for his welfare and happiness, 
craved his leave to depart. “My knaves,” he said, “are 
too busy at the ale-stand to leave their revelry for the 
empty breath of a bugle horn.” 

“You have freed them from higher restraint. Halbert,” 
answered the Abbot, “ and therein taught them to rebel 
against your own.” 

“ Fear not that, "Edward,” exclaimed Halbert, who never 
gave his brother his monastic name of Ambrosius ; “none 
obey the command of real duty so well as those who are 
free from the observance of slavish bondage.” 

He was turning to depart, when the Abbot said, “ Let 
us not yet part, my brother — here comes some light re- 
freshment. Leave not the house which I must now call 
mine, till force expel me from it, until you have at least 
broken bread with me.” 

The poor lay brother, the same who acted as porter, 
now entered the apartment, bearing some simple refresh- 
ment and a flask of wine. “ He had found it,” he said, 
with officious humility, “by rummaging through every 
nook of the cellar.” 

The Knight filled a small silver cup, and quaffing it off 
asked his brother to pledge him, observing the wine was 
Bacharac, of the first vintage, and great age. 

“ Ay,” said the poor lay brother, “ it came out of the 
nook which old brother Nicholas (may his soul be happy !) 
was wont to call Abbot Ingelram’s corner ; and Abbot In- 
gelram was bred at the Convent of Wurtzburg, which I 
understand to be near where that choice wine grows.” 

“ True, my reverend sir,” said Sir Halbert ; “ and there- 


148 


THE ABBOT. 


fore I entreat my brother and you to pledge me in a cup 
of this orthodox vintage.” 

The thin old porter looked with a wishful glance toward 
the Abbot. Vo veniam” said his Superior; and the old 
man seized, with a trembling hand, a beverage to which 
he had been long unaccustomed ; drained the cup with 
protracted delight, as if dwelling on the flavor and perfume, 
and set it down with a melancholy smile and shake of the 
head, as if bidding adieu in future to such delicious pota- 
tions. The brothers smiled. But when Sir Halbert motioned 
to the Abbot to take up his cup and do him reason, the Ab- 
bot, in turn, shook his head, and replied, “This is no day 
for the Abbot of Saint Mary’s to eat the fat and drink the 
sweet. In water from our Lady’s well,” he added, filling 
a cup with the limpid element, “ I wish you, my brother, 
all happiness, and, above all, a true sight of your spiritual 
errors.” 

“And to you, my beloved Edward,” replied Glendinning, 
“ I wish the free exercise of your own free reason, and the 
discharge of more important duties than are connected 
with the idle name which you have so rashly assumed.” 

The brothers parted with deep regret ; and yet, each con- 
fident in his opinion, felt somewhat relieved by the absence 
of one whom he respected so much, and with whom he 
could agree so little. 

Soon afterward the sound of the Knight of Avenel’s 
trumpets was heard, and the Abbot went to the top of the 
tower, from whose dismantled battlements he could soon 
see the horsemen ascending the rising ground in the direc- 
tion of the drawbridge. As he gazed, Magdalen Graeme 
came to his side. 

“Thou art come,” he said, “to catch the last glimpse 
of thy grandson, my sister. Yonder he wends, under the 
charge of the best knight in Scotland, his faith ever ex- 
. cepted.” 

^ “Thou canst bear witness, my father, that it was no wish 
either of mine or of Roland’s,” replied the matron, “ which 
induced the Knight of Avenel, as he is called, again to en- 
tertain my grandson in his household— Heaven, which con- 
founds the wise with their own wisdom, and the wicked 
with their own policy, hath placed him where, for the ser- 
vices of the Church, I would most wish him to be.” 

‘‘ I know not what you mean, my sister,” said the Abbot. 

1 replied Magdalen, “ hast thou never 

Heard that there are spirits powerful to rend the walls of a 


THE ABBOT, 


149 


castle asunder when once admitted, which yet cannot enter 
the house unless they are invited, nay, dragged over the 
threshold ? * Twice hath Roland Graeme been thus drawn 
into the household of Avenel by those who now hold the 
title. Let them look to the issue.” 

So saying she left the turret ; and the Abbot, after paus- 
ing a moment on her words, which he imputed to the 
unsettled state of her mind, followed down the winding 
stair to celebrate his admission to his high office by fast 
and prayer, instead of revelling and thanksgiving. 


CHAPTER SIXTEENTH. 


Youth ! thou wear’st to manhood now, 

Darker lip and darker brow, 

Statelier step, more pensive mien, 

In thy face and gait are seen ; 

Thou must now brook midnight watches. 

Take thy food and sport by snatches ; 

For the gambol and the jest. 

Thou wert wont to love the best. 

Graver follies must thou follow. 

But as senseless, false and hollow. 

Life — A Poem. 

Young Roland Graeme now trotted gayly forward in the 
train of Sir Halbert Glendinning. He was relieved from 
his most galling apprehension — the encounter of the scorn 
and taunt which might possibly hail his immediate return 
to the Castle of Avenel. “ There will be a change ere they 
see me again, he thought to himself ; “ I shall wear the 
coat of plate, instead of the green jerkin, and the steel 
morion for the bonnet and feather. They will be bold that 
may venture to break a gibe on the man-at-arms for the 
follies of the page ; and I trust that ere we return 1 shall 
have done something more worthy of note than hallooing 
a hound after a deer, or scrambling a crag for a kite’s nest.” 
He could not, indeed, help marvelling that his grand- 
mother, with all her religious prejudices, leaning, it would 
seem, to the other side, had consented so readily to his re- 
entering the service of the House of Avenel ; and yet more 
at the mysterious joy with which she took leave of him at 
the Abbey. 

* Note I. Inability of evil spirits to enter a bouse uninvited. 


150 


thb: abbot. 


“Heaven,” said the dame, as she kissed her young re- 
lation, and bade him farewell, “works its own work, even 
by the hands of those of our enemies who think them- 
selves the strongest and the wisest. Thou, mv child, be 
ready to act upon the call of thy religion and counti y ; 
and remember, each earthly bond which thou canst form, 
is, compared to the ties which bind thee to them, like the 
loose flax to the twisted cable. Thou hast not forgot the 
face or form of the damsel Catherine Seyton ?” 

Roland would have replied in the negative, but the word 
seemed to stick in his throat, and Magdalen continued her 
exhortations. 

“ Thou must not forget her, my son ; and here I entrust 
thee with a token, which I trust thou wilt speedily find an 
opportunity of delivering with care and secrecy into her 
own hand.” 

She put here into Roland’s hand a very small packet, of 
which she again enjoined him to take the strictest care, 
and to suffer it to be seen by no one save Catherine Sey- 
ton, who, she again (very unnecessarily) reminded him, was 
the young maiden he had met on the preceding day. She 
then bestowed on him her solemn benediction, and bade 
God speed him. 


There was something in her manner and her conduct 
which implied mystery ; but Roland Graeme was not of an 
age or temper to waste much time in endeavoring to de- 
cipher her meaning. All that was obvious to his percep- 
tion in the present journey promised pleasure and novel- 
ty. He rejoiced that he was travelling toward Edinburgh, 
in order to assume the character of a man, and lay asTde 
that of a boy. He was delighted to think that he would 
have an opportunity of rejoining Catherine Seyton, whose 
bright eyes and_ lively manners had made so favorable an 
impiession on his imagination ; and, as an inexperienced, 
yet high-spirited, youth, entering for the first time upon 
active life, his heart bounded at the thought, that he was 
about to see all those scenes of courtly splendor and war- 
like adventures, of which the followers of Sir Halbert used 
to boast on their occasional visits to Avenel, to the won- 
derment and envy of those who, like Roland, knew courts 
and camps only by hearsay, and were condemned to the 
solitary sports and almost monastic seclusion of Avenel 
surrounded by its lonely lake, and embosomed among its 
pathless mountains. “ They shall mention my name,” he 
said to himself, “if the risk of my life can purchase me 


THE .-IBB or. 


151 

opportunities of distinction, and Catherine Seyton’s saucy 
eye shall rest with more respect on the distinguished soldier, 
than that with which she laughed to scorn the raw and in- 
experienced page.” Tliere was wanting but one accessory 
to complete the scene of rapturous excitation, and he 
possessed it by being once more mounted on the back of 
a fiery and active horse, instead of plodding along on foot, 
as had been the case during the preceding davs. 

Impelled by the liveliness of his own spirits, which so 
many circumstances tended naturally to exalt, Roland 
Graeme’s voice and his laughter wxre soon distinguished 
amid the trampling of the horses of the retinue, and more 
than once attracted the attention of their leader, who re- 
marked with satisfaction, that the youth replied with good- 
humored raillery to such of the train as jested with him 
on his dismissal and return to the service of the House of 
Avenel. 

“ I thought the holly-branch in your bonnet had been 
blighted, Master Roland ? ” said one of the men-at-arms. 

“ Only pinched with half-an-hour’s frost ; you see it 
flourishes as green as ever.” 

“ It is too grave a plant to flourish on so hot a soil as 
that headpiece of thine. Master Roland Graeme,” retorted 
the other, who was an old equerry of Sir Halbert Glendin- 
ning. 

“ If it will not flourish alone,” said Roland, “ I will 
mix it with the laurel and the myrtle — and I will carry 
them so near the sky, that it shall make amends for their 
stinted growth.” 

Thus speaking, he dashed his spurs into his horse’s 
sides, and, checking him at the same time, compelled him 
to execute a lofty caracole. Sir Halbert Glendinning looked 
at the demeanor of his new attendant with that sort of 
melancholy pleasure with which those who have long fol- 
lowed the pursuits of life, and are sensible of their vanity, 
regard the gay, young, and buoyant spirits to whom exist- 
ence, as yet, is only hope and promise. 

In the meanwhile, Adam Woodcock, the falconer, stripped 
of his masking habit, and attired, according to his rank 
and calling, in a green jerkin, with a hawking-bag on tlie 
one side, and a sliort hanger on the other, a glove on his 
left hand which reached half-way up his arm, and a bonnet 
and feather upon his head, came after the party as fast as 
his active little galloway-nag could trot, and immediately 
entered into parley with Roland Graeme. 


52 


THE /IBB or. 


“ So, my youngster, you are once more under sliadow of 
the holly-branch ? ” 

“And in case to repay you, my good friend,” answered 
Roland, “your ten groats of silver.” 

“Which, but an hour since,” said tlie falconer, “you had 
nearly paid me with ten inches of steel. On my faith, it is 
written in the book of our destin}^, that I must brook your 
dagger after all.” 

“Nay, speak not of that, my good friend,” said the 
youth, “ I would rather have broached my own bosom than 
yours ; but who could have known you in the mumming 
dress you wore ? ” 

“Yes,” the falconer resumed — for both as a poet and 
actor he had his own professional share of self-conceit — 
“ I think I was as good a Howleglas as ever played part 
at a Shrovetide revelry, and not a much worse Abbot of 
Unreason. I defy the Old Eneniy to unmask me when I 
choose to keep my vizard on. What the devil brought the 
Knight on us before we had the game out ? You would have 
heard me hollo my own new ballad with a voice should 
have reached to Berwick. But I pray you. Master Roland, 
be less free of cold steel on slight occasions ; since, but for 
the stuffing of my reverend doublet, I had only left the 
kirk to take my place in the kirkyard.” 

“Nay, spare me that feud,” said Roland Graeme, “ we 
shall have no time to fight it out ; for, by our lord’s com- 
mand, I am bound for Edinburgh.” 

“ I know it,” said Adam Woodcock, “and even there- 
fore we shall have time to solder up this rent by the way, 
for Sir Halbert has appointed me your companion and 
guide.” 

“ Ay ? and with what purpose ?” said the page. 

“ That,” said the falconer, “ is a question I cannot answer, 
but I know, that be the food of the eyases washed or un- 
washed, and, indeed, whatever becomes of perch and mew, 
I am to go with you to Edinburgh, and see you safely de- 
livered to the Regent at Holyrood.” 

“ How, to the Regent ? ” said Roland, in surprise. 

“Ay, by my faith, to the Regent,” replied Woodcock, “I 
promise you, that if you are not to enter his service, at 
least you are to wait upon him in the character of a re- 
tainer of our Knight of Avenel.” 

“I know no right,” said the youth, “which the Knight 
of Avenel hath to transfer my service, supposing that I owe 
It to himself.” ^ 


THE ABBOT. 


153 


“ Hush, hush ! ” said the falconer ; “ that is a question 1 
advise no one to stir in until he has the mountain or the 
lake, or the inarch of another kingdom, which is better 
than either, betwixt him and his feudal superior.” 

“But Sir Halbert Glendinning,” said the youth, “is not 
my feudal superior ; nor has he aught of authority ” 

“ I pray you, my son, to rein your tongue,” answered 
Adam Woodcock ; “my lord’s displeasure, if you provoke 
it, will be worse to appease than my lady’s. The touch of 
his least finger were lieavier than her hardest blow. And, 
by my faith, he is a man of steel, as true and as pure, but 
as hard and as pitiless. You remember the Cock of Cap- 
perlaw, whom he hanged over his gate for a mere mistake^ 
— a poor yoke of oxen taken in Scotland, when he thought 
he was taking them in English land ? I loved the Cock of 
Capperlaw ; the Kerrs had not an honester man in their 
clan, and they have had men that might have been a pattern 
to the Border — men that would not have lifted under twenty 
cows at once, and would have held themselves dishonored 
if they had taken a drift of sheep, or the like, but always 
managevd their raids in full credit and honor. — But see, 
his worship halts, and we are close by the bridge. Ride 
up — ride up — we must have his last instructions.” 

It was as Adam Woodcock said. In the hollow way de- 
scending tovT^ard the bridge, which was still in the guardian- 
ship of Peter Bridgeward, as he was called, though he was 
now very old. Sir Halbert Glendinning halted his retinue, 
and beckoned to Woodcock and Graeme to advance to the 
head of the train. 

“ Woodcock,” said he, “ thou knowest to whom thou art 
to conduct this youth. And thou, young man, obey dis- 
creetly and with diligence the orders that shall be given 
thee. Curb thy vain and peevish temper. Be just, true, 
and faithful ; and there is in thee that which may raise 
thee many a degree above thy present station. Neither 
shalt thou— always supposing thine efforts to be fair and 
honest — want the protection and countenance of Avenel.” 

Leaving them in front of the bridge, the centre tower 
of whicli now began to cast a prolonged shade upon the 
river, the Knight of Avenel turned to the left, without 
crossing the river, and pursued his way toward the chain 
of hills within whose recesses are situated the Lake and 
Castle of Avenel. There remained behind, the falconer, 
Roland Graeme, and a domestic of the Knight, of inferior 
rank, who was left with them to look after their horses 


^54 


THE ABBOT. 


while on the road, to carry their baggage, and to attend 

to their convenience. , , r • , j a 

So soon as the more numerous body of riders had turned 
off to pursue their journey westward, those whose route 
lay across the river, and was directed toward the north, 
summoned the Bridgeward, and demanded a free pas- 

S2j,cr0, 

“ i will not lower the bridge,” answered Peter, in a voice 
querulous with age and ill humor. “ Come Papist, come 
Protestant, ye are all the same. The Papist threatened us 
with Purgatory, and fleeched us with pardons the Prot- 
estant mints at us with his sword, and cuittles us with the 
•liberty of conscience ; but nev’er a one of either says, 

‘ Peter, there is your penny.’ I am well tired of all this, 
and for no man shall the bridge fall that pays me not 
ready money ; and I would have you know I care as little 
for Geneva as for Rome — as little for homilies as for par- 
dons ; and the silver pennies are the only passports I will 
hear of.” 

“Here is a proper old chuff!” said Woodcock to his 
companion ; then raising his voice, he exclaimed, “ Hark 
thee, dog — Bridgeward, villain, dost thou think we have 
refused thy namesake Peter’s pence to Rome, to pay thine 
at the Bridge of Kennaquhair ? Let thy bridge down in- 
stantly to the followers of the house of Avenel, or by the 
hand of my father, and that handled many a bridle rein, 
for he was a bluff Yorkshireman — I say, by my father’s 
hand, our Knight will blow thee out of thy solan-goose’s 
nest there in the middle of the water, with the light fal- 
conet which we are bringing southward from Edinburgh 
to-morrow.” 

The Bridgeward heard, and muttered, “A plague on fal- 
con and falconet, on cannon and demicannon, and all the 
barking bull-dogs whom they halloo against stone and 
lime in these our days 1 It was a merry time when there 
was little besides handy blows, and it may be a flight of 
arrows that harmed an ashlar wall as little as so many 
hailstones. But we must jouk and let the jaw gang by.” 
Comforting himself in his state of diminished consequence 
with this pithy old proverb, Peter Bridgeward lowered the 
drawbridge, and permitted them to pass over. At the 
sight of his white hair, albeit it discovered a visage equally 
peevish through age and misfortune, Roland was inclined 
to give him an alms, but Adam Woodcock prevented him. 
“ E’en let him pay the penalty of his former churlishness 


THE ABBOT. 


55 


and greed,” he said ; “ the wolf, when he has lost his teeth, 
should be treated no better than a cur.” 

Leaving the Bridgeward to lament the alteration of 
times, which sent domineering soldiers and feudal retain- 
ers to his place of passage, instead of peaceful pilgrims, 
and reduced him to become the oppressed, instead of 
playing the extortioner, the travellers turned them north- 
ward ; and Adam Woodcock, well acquainted with that 
part of the country, proposed to cut short a considerable 
portion of the road, by traversing the little vale of Glen- 
dearg, so famous for the adventures which befell therein 
during the earlier part of the Benedictine’s manuscript. 
With these, and with the thousand commentaries, repre- 
sentations, and misrepresentations, to which they had 
given rise, Roland Graeme was, of course, well acquaint- 
ed ; for, in the Castle of Avenel, as well as in other great 
establishments, the inmates talked of nothing so often, or 
with such pleasure, as of the private affairs of their lord 
and lady. But while Roland was viewing with interest 
these haunted scenes, in which things were said to have 
passed beyond the ordinary laws of nature, Adam Wood- 
cock was still regretting in his secret soul the unfinished 
revel and the unsung ballad, and kept every now and then 
breaking out with some such verses as these : 

“ The Friars of Fail drank berry -brown ale, 

The best that e’er was tasted ; 

The Monks of Melrose made gude kale 
On Fridays, when they fasted. 

Saint Monance’ sister, * 

The gray priest kist her — 

Fiend save the company ! 

Sing hay trix, trim-go-trix, 

Under the greenwood tree.” 

“ By my hand, friend Woodcock,” said the page, though 
I know you for a hardy gospeller, that fear neither saint 
nor devil, yet, if I were you, I would not sing your profane 
songs in this valley of Glendearg, considering what has 
happened here before our time.” 

“A straw for your wandering spirits!” said Adam Wood- 
cock ; “ I mind them no more than an erne cares for a string 
of wild-geese — they have all fled since the pulpits were 
filled with honest men, and the people’s ears with sound 
doctrine. Nay, I have a touch at them in my ballad, an I 
had but had the good luck to have it sung to end;” and 
again he set off in the same key ; 


56 


THE ABBOT. 


“ From haunted spring and grassy ring, 

Troop goblin, elf, and fairy ; 

And the kelpie must flit from the black bog-pit, 

And the brownie must not tarry ; 

To Limbo-lake, 

Their way they take. 

With scarce the pith to flee. 

Sing hay trix, trim-go-trix. 

Under the greenwood tree. 

I think,” he added, “that could Sir Halbert’s patience have 
stretched till we came that length, he would have had a 
hearty laugh, and that is what he seldom enjoys.” 

“ If it be all true that men tell of his early life,” said Ro- 
land, “ he has less right to laugh at goblins than most men.” 

“Ay, if\t be all true,” answered Adam Woodcock ; “but 
who can ensure us of that ? Moreover, these were but tales 
the monks used to gull us simple laymen withal ; they knew 
that fairies and hobgoblins brought aves and paternosters 
into repute ; but, now we have given up worship of images 
in wood and stone, methinks it were no time to be afraid 
of bubbles in the water, or shadows in the air.” 

“ However,” said Roland Graeme, “ as the Catholics say 
they do not worship wood or stone, but only as emblems of 
the holy saints, and not as things holy in themselves ” 

“ Pshaw ! pshaw ! ” answered the falconer ; “ a rush for 
their prating. They told us another story when these bap- 
tized idols of theirs brought pike staves and sandalled 
shoon from all the four winds, and whillied the old women 
out of their corn and their candle-ends, and their butter, 
bacon, wool, and clieese, and when not so much as a gray 
groat escaped tithing.” 

Roland Graeme had been long taught, by necessity, to 
consider his form of religion as a profound secret, and to 
say nothing whatever in its defence when assailed, lest he 
should draw on himself the suspicion of belonging to the 
unpopular and exploded church. He therefore suffered 
Adam Woodcock to triumph without farther opposition, 
marvelling in his own mind whether any of the goblins, 
formerly such active agents, would avenge his rude raillery 
before they left the valley of Glendearg. But no such 
consequences followed. They passed the night quietly in 
a cottage in the glen, and the next day resumed their route 
to Edinburgh. 


THE ABBOT. 


157 


CHAPTER SEVENTEENTH. 

Edina ! Scotia’s darling seat, 

All hail thy palaces and towers, 

Where once, beneath a monarch’s feet. 

Sate legislation's sovereign powers. 

Burns. 

“This, then, is Edinburgh ?” said the youth, as the fellow- 
travellers arrived at one of the heights to the southward, 
which commanded a view of the great northern capital. 
“This is that Edinburgh of which we have heard so much.” 

“ Even so,” said the old falconer ; “yonder stands Auld 
Reekie — you niay see the smoke hover over her at twenty 
miles’ distance, as the goss-hawk hangs over a plump of 
young wild ducks — ay, yonder is the heart of Scotland, 
and each throb that she gives is felt from the edge of Sol- 
way to Duncan’s-bay-head. See, yonder is the old castle ; 
and see to the J'ight, on yon rising ground, that is the 
Castle of Craigmillar, which I have known a merry place 
in my time.” 

“ Was it not there,” said the page, in a low voice, “ that 
the Queen held her court ? ” 

“Ay, ay,” replied the falconer, “Queen she was then, 
though you must not call her so now. Well, they may say 
what they will, many a true heart will be sad for Mary 
Stewart, e’en if all be true men say of her ; for, look you, 
Master Roland, she was the loveliest creature to look 
upon that I ever saw with eye, and no lady in the land 
liked better the fair flight of a falcon. I was at the great 
match on Roslin Moor betwixt Bothwell — he was a black 
sight to her that Bothwell — and the Baron of Roslin, who 
could judge a hawk’s flight as well as any man in Scotland 
— a butt of Rhenish and a ring of gold was the wager, and 
it was flown as fairly for as ever was red gold and bright 
wine. And to see her there on her white palfrey, that flew 
as if it scorned to touch more than the heather blossom ; 
and to hear her voice, as clear and sweet as the mavis’s 
whistle, mix among our jolly whooping and whistling ; and 
to mark all the nobles dashing round her ; happiest he who 
got a word or a look — tearing through moss and hagg, and 
venturing neck and limb to gain the praise of a bold ridej*, 
and the blink of a bonnyQueen’s bright eye ; — she will see 
little hawking where she lies now — ay, ay, pomp and pleas- 
ure pass away as speedily as the wap of a falcon’s wing.” 


158 


THE ABR07\ 


“And where is this poor Queen now confined?” said 
Roland Graeme, interested in the fate of a woman whose 
beauty and grace had made so strong an impression even 
on the blunt and careless character of Adam Woodcock. 

“Where is she now imprisoned?” said honest Adam; 
“why, in some castle in the north, they say — I know not 
where, for my part, nor is it worth while to vex one’s sell 
anent what cannot be mended — An she had guided her 
power well whilst she had it, she liad not come to so evil a 
pass. Men say she must resign her crown to this little 
baby of a prince, for that they will trust her with it no 
longer. Our master has been as busy as his neighbors 
in all this work. If the Queen should come to her own 
again, Avenel Castle is like to smoke for it, unless he 
makes his bargain all the better.” 

“ In a castle in the north Queen Mary is confined ? ” said 
the page. 

■■'“Why, ay — they say so, at least — in a castle beyond that 
great river which comes down yonder, and looks like a 
river, but it is a branch of the sea, and as bitter as brine.” 

“And amongst all her subjects,” said the page, with 
some emotion, “ is there none that will adventure any- 
thing for her relief ? ” 

“ That is a kittle question,” said the falconer ; “ and if 
you ask it often. Master Roland, I am fain to tell you that 
you will be mewed up yourself in some of those castles, if 
they do not prefer twisting your head off, to save farther 
trouble with you — Adventure anything ? Lord, why Mur- 
ray has the wind in his poop now, man, and flies so high 
and strong, that the devil a wing of them can match him 
— No, no ; there she is, and there she must lie, till Heaven 
send her deliverance, or till her son has the management of 
all — But Murray will never let her loose again, he knows 
her too well. And hark thee, we are now bound for Holy- 
rood, where thou wilt find plenty of news, and of courtiers 
to tell it — But, take my counsel, and keep a calm sough, 
as the Scots say — hear every man’s counsel, and keep your 
own. And if you hap to learn any news you like, leap not 
up as if you were to put on armor direct in the cause — 
Our old Mr. Wingate says— and he knows court cattle well 
— that if you are told old King Coul is come alive again, 
you should turn it off with, ‘And is he in truth ? — I lieard 
not of it,’ and should seem no more moved than if one 
told you, by way of novelty, that old King Coul was dead 
and buried. Wherefore, look well to your bearing, Mr. 


THE ABBOT, 


159 


Roland, for, I promise you, you come among a generation 
that are keen as a hungry liawk — And never be dagger out 
of sheath at every wry word you hear spoken ; for you wdlt 
find as hot blades as yourself, and then will be letting of 
blood without advice either of leech or almanac.” 

“You shall see how staid I will be, and how cautious, 
my good friend,” said Graeme ; “ but, blessed Lady, what 
goodly house is that which is lying all in ruins so close 
to the city ? Have they been playing at the Abbot of 
Unreason here, and ended the gambol by burning the 
church ? ” 

“There again now,” replied his companion, “you go 
down the wind like a wild haggard, that minds neither lure 
nor beck — that is a question you should have asked in as 
low a tone as I shall answer it.” 

“ If I stay here long,” said Roland Graeme, “ it is like I 
shall lose the natural use of my voice — but wdiat are the 
ruins then ? ” 

“ The Kirk of Field,” said the falconer, in a low’ and im- 
pressive whisper, laying at the same time his finger on liis 
lip ; “ ask no more about it — somebody got foul play, and 
somebody got the blame of it ; and the game began there 
which perhaps may not be played out in our time. Poor 
Henry Darnley ! to be an ass, he understood somewhat of 
a hawk ; but they sent him on the wing through the air 
himself one bright moonlight night.” 

The memory of this catastrophe was so recent, that the 
page averted his eyes with horror from the scathed ruins 
in which it had taken place ; and the accusations against 
the Queen, to which it had given rise, came over his mind 
witirsuch strength as to balance the compassion he had 
begun to entertain for her present forlorn situation.* 

It was, indeed, with that agitating state of mind w'hich 
arises partly from horror, but more from anxious interest 
and curiosity, that young Graeme found himself actually 
traversing the scene of those tremendous events, the re- 
port of which had disturbed the most distant solitudes in 
Scotland, like the echoes of distant thunder rolling among 
the mountains. 

“ Now’,” he thought, “ now’ or never shall I become a 
man, and bear my part in those deeds which the simple 

* [The Collegiate Church of St. Mary in the Fields, so called from being 
outside the walls of Edinburgh, was familiarly known as the Kirk of Field. 
After the catastrophe of Darnley’s murder, the mined building and adjacent 
grounds were aci^uired as a site for the University, founded in 1582. J 


i6o 


THE ABBOT. 


inhabitants of our hamlets repeat to each other as if they 


V-fCXl \.\J \^CL\^IX vycii\-»x <XO IX Lll^y 

were wrought by beings of a superior order to their own. 
I will know now wherefore the Knight of Avenel carries 
his crest so much above those of the neighboring baron- 
age, and how it is that men, by valor and wisdom, work 
their way from the hoddin-gray coat to the cloak of scarlet 
and gold. Men say I have not much wisdom to recom- 
mend me ; and if that be true, courage must do it ; for 
I will be a man amongst living men, or a dead corpse 
amongst the dead.” 

From these dreams of ambition he turned his thoughts 
to those of pleasure, and began to form many conjectures, 
when and where he should see Catherine Seyton, and in 
what manner their acquaintance was to be renewed. With 
such conjectures he was amusing himself, when he found 
that they had entered the city, and all other feelings were 
suspended in the sensation of giddy astonishment with 
which an inhabitant of the country is affected, when, for 
the first time, he finds himself in the streets of a large and 
populous city, a unit in the midst of thousands. 

The principal street of Edinburgh was then, as now, one 
of the most spacious in Europe. The extreme heiglit of 
the houses, and the variety of Gothic gables and battle- 
ments, and balconies, by which the sky-line on each side 
was crowned and terminated, together with the width of 
the street itself, might have struck with surprise a more 
practised eye than that of young Graeme. The population, 
close packed within the walls of the citv, and at this time 
increased by the number of the lords of the King’s partv 
who had thronged to Edinburgh to wait upon the Regent 
Murray, absolutely swarmed like bees on the wide and 
stately street. Instead of the shop windows, wdiich are 
now calculated for the display of goods, the traders had 
their open booths projecting on the street, in which, as in 
the fjishion of the modern bazaars, all was exposed which 
they had upon sale. And though the commodities were 
not of the richest kinds, yet Graeme thought he beheld the 
wealth of the whole world in the various bales of Flanders 
specimens of tapestry ; and, at other places, 
the display of domestic utensils and pieces of plate struck 
him with wonder. The sight of cutlers’ booths, furnished 
wnth swords and poniards which were manufactured in 
bcotland, and with pieces of defensive armor imported 
from Flanders, added to his surprise ; and, at every step, 
he found so much to admire and to gaze upon, that Adam 


THE ABBOT. 


i6i 


Woodcock had no little difficulty in prevailing on him to 
advance through such a scene of enchantment. 

The sight of the crowds which filled the streets was 
equally a subject of wonder. Here a gay lady, in her 
muffler or silken veil, traced her way delicately, a gen- 
tleman-usher making way for her, a page bearing up 
her train, and a waiting-gentlewoman carrying her Bible, 
thus intimating that her purpose was toward the church. 
There he might see a group of citizens bending the same 
way, with their short Flemish cloaks, wide trousers, and 
high-caped doublets, a fashion to which, as well as to their 
bonnet and feather, the Scots were long faithful. Then, 
again, came the clergyman himself, in his black Geneva 
cloak and band, lending a grave and attentive ear to the 
discourse of several persons who accompanied him, and 
who were doubtless holding serious converse on the relig- 
ious subject he was about to treat of. Nor did there lack 
passengers of a ditferent class and appearance. 

At every turn, Roland Graeme might see a gallant ruffle 
along in the newer or French mode, his doublet slashed, 
and his points of the same colors with the lining, his long 
sword on one side, and his poniard on the other, behind 
him a body of stout serving-men, proportioned to his 
estate and quality, all of whom Avalked with the air of 
military retainers, and were armed with sword and buckler, 
the latter being a small round shield, not unlike the High- 
land target, having a steel spike in the centre. Two of 
these parties, each headed by a person of importance, 
chanced to meet in the very centre of the street, or, as it 
was called, “ the crown of the causeway,” a post of honor 
as tenaciously asserted in Scotland as that of giving or 
taking the wall used to be in the more southern part of 
the island. The two leaders being of equal rank, and, 
most probably, either animated by political dislike, or by 
recollection of some feudal enmity, marched close up to 
each other, without yielding an inch to the right or the 
left ; and neither showing the least purpose of giving way, 
they stopped' for an instant, and then drew their swords. 
Their followers imitated their example ; about a score of 
weapons at once flashed in the sun, and there was an im- 
mediate clatter of swords and bucklers, while the followers 
on either side cried their master’s name ; the one shouting 
“Help, a Leslie ! a Leslie !” while the others answered with 
shouts of “ Sevton ! Seyton !” with the additional punning 
slogan, “Set on, Set on— bear the knaves to the ground! ” 

II 


i 62 


THE ABBOT. 


If the falconer found difficulty in getting the page to 
go forward before, it was now perfectly impossible. He 
reined up his horse, clapped his hands, and, delighted with 
the fray, cried and shouted as fast as any of those who 
were actually engaged in it. 

The noise and cries thus arising on the Highgate, as it 
was called, drew into the quarrel two or three other par- 
ties of gentlemen and their servants, besides some single 
passengers, who, hearing a fray betwixt these two distin- 
guished names, took part in it either for love or hatred. 

The combat became now very sharp, and although the 
sword-and-buckler men made more clatter and noise than 
they did real damage, yet several good cuts were dealt 
among them ; and those who wore rapiers, a more formi- 
dable weapon than the ordinary Scottish swords, gave and 
received dangerous wounds. Two men were already 
stretched on the causeway, and the party of Seyton began 
to give ground, being much inferior in number to the other, 
with which several of the citizens had united themselves, 
when young Roland Graeme, beholding their leader, a 
noble gentleman, fighting bravely, and hard pressed with 
numbers, could withhold no longer. “Adam Woodcock,” 
he said, “an you be a man, draw, and let us take part with 
the Seyton.” And without waiting a reply, or listening to 
the falconer’s earnest entreaty that he would leave alone a 
strife in which he had no concern, the fiery youth sprung 
from his horse, drew his short sword, and shouting like the 
rest “ A Seyton ! a Seyton ! Set on ! Set on ! ” thrust for- 
ward into the throng, and struck down one of those who 
was pressing hardest upon the gentleman whose cause he 
espoused. This sudden reinforcement gave spirit to the 
weaker party, who began to renew the combat with much 
alacrity, when four of the magistrates of the city, distin- 
guished by their velvet cloaks and gold chains, came up 
with a guard of halberdiers and citizens, armed with long 
weapons, and well accustomed to such service, thrust 
boldly forward and compelled the swordsmen to separate, 
who immediately retreated in different directions, leaving 
such of the wounded on both sides as had been disabled 
in the fray lying on the street. 

The falconer, who had been tearing his beard for anger 
at his comrade s rashness, now rode up to him with the 
horse which he had caught by the bridle, and accosted him 
with- Master Roland — master goose — master madcap — > 
will it please you to get on liorse, and budge ? or will you 


THE ABBOT. 


remain here to be carried to prison, and made to answer 
for this pretty day’s work?” 

The page, who had begun his retreat along with the 
Seytons, just as if he had been one of their natural allies, 
was by this unceremonious application made sensible that 
he was acting a foolish part ; and obeying Adam Wood- 
cock with some sense of shame, he sprung actively on 
horseback, and upsetting with the shoulder of the animal 
a city-officer who was making toward him, he began to 
ride smartly down the street along with his companion, 
and was quickly out of the reach o"f the hue and cry. In 
fact, rencounters of the kind were so common in Edin- 
burgh at that period, that the disturbance seldom excited 
much attention after the affray was over, unless some per- 
son of consequence chanced to have fallen, an incident 
which imposed on his friends the duty of avenging his 
death on the first convenient opportunity. So feeble, in- 
deed, was the arm of the police, that it was not unusual 
for such skirmishes to last for hours where the parties 
were numerous and well matched. But at this time the 
Regent, a man of great strength of character, aware of 
the mischief which usually arose from such acts of vio- 
lence, had prevailed with the magistrates to keep a con- 
stant guard on foot for preventing or separating such 
affrays as had happened in the present case. 

The falconer and his young companion were now riding 
down the Canongate, and had slackened their pace to 
avoid attracting attention, the rather that there seemed to 
be no appearance of pursuit. Roland hung liis head as 
one who was conscious his conduct had been none of the 
wisest, whilst his companion thus addressed him ; 

“ Will you be pleased to tell me one thing, Master Roland 
Graeme, and that is, whether there be a devil incarnate in 
you or no ? ” 

“Truly, Master Adam Woodcock,” answered the page, 
“ I would fain hope there is not.” 

“ Then,” said Adam, “ I would fain know by what other 
influence or instigation you are perpetually at one end or 
the other of some bloody brawl ? What, I pray, had you 
to do with these Seytons and Leslies, that you never heard 
the names of in your life before ? ” 

“You are out there, my friend,” said Roland Graeme, 

“ I have my own reasons for being a friend to the Seytons.” 

“They must have been very secret , reasons, then,” an- 
swered Adam Woodcock, “for I think I could have wagered 


164 


THE ABBOT. 


► 

you had never known one of the name ; and I am apt to 
believe still that it was your unhallowed passion for that 
clashing of cold iron, which has as much charm for you as 
the clatter of a brass pan hath for a hiv^e of bees, rather 
than any care either for Seyton or for Leslie, that persuaded 
you to thrust your fool’s head into a quarrel that no ways 
concerned you. But take this for a warning, my young 
master, that if you are to draw sword with every man who 
draws sword on the Highgate here, it will be scarce worth 
your while to sheathe bilbo again for the rest of your life, 
since, if I guess rightly, it will scarce endure on such terms 
for many hours — all which I leave to your serious con- 
sideration.” 

“ By my word, Adam, I honor your advice ; and I promise 
you that I will practise by it as faithfully as if I were 
sworn apprentice to you, to the trade and mystery of bear- 
ing myself with all wisdom and safety through the new 
paths of life that I am about to be engaged in.” 

“ And therein you will do well,” said the falconer ; “ and 
I do not quarrel wdth you, Master Roland, for having a 
grain over much spirit, because I know one may bring to 
the hand a wild hawk which one nevxr can a dunghill hen 
— and so betwixt two faults you have the best on’t. But 
besides your peculiar genius for quarrelling, and lugging 
out your side companion, my dear Master Roland, you 
have also the gift of peering under every woman’s muffler 
and screen, as if you expected to find an old acquaintance. 
Though were you to spy one I should be as much sur- 
prised at it, well wotting how few you have seen of these 
same wild-fowl, as I was at your taking so deep an interest 
even now in the Seyton.” ^ 

“Tush man! nonsense and folly,” answered Roland 
Graeme ; “ I but sought to see what eyes these gentle 
hawks have got under their hood.” 

“Ay, but it’s a dangerous subject of inquiry,” said the 
falconer ; “you had better hold out your bare wrist for an 
eagle to perch upon. — Look you. Master Roland, these 
pretty wild-geese cannot be hawked at without risk— they 
have as many divings, boltings, and volleyings, as the most 
gamesome quarry that falcon ever flew at— And besides, 
every woman of them is manned with her husband, or her 
kind friend, or her brother, or her cousin, or her sworn 
servant at the least— But you heed me not, Master Roland, 
though I know the game so well — your eye is all on that 
pretty damsel who trips down the gate before us — by my 


THE ABBOT 


i6s 

certes, I will warrant her a blithe dancer either in reel or 
re\ el a pair of silver morisco bells would become these 
pietty ankles as well as the jesses would suit the fairest 
iNorway hawk.” 

‘‘ Ihou cyt a fool, Adam,” said the page, “ and I care not 
a button about the girl or her ankles— But, what the foul 
fiend, one must look at something ! ” 

“Very true. Master Roland Gr^me,” said his guide, 
“ but let me pray you to choose your objects better. Look 
you, there is scarce a woman walks this Highgate with a 
silk scieen or a pearlin muffler, but, as I said before, she 
has either gentleman-usher before her, or kinsman, or 
lover, or husband, at her elbow, or it may be a brace of 
stout fellows, with sword and buckler, not so far behind 
but what they can follc^w close — But you heed me no more 
than a goss-hawk minds a yellow yoldring.” 

“O yes, I do — I do mind you indeed,” said Roland 
Graeme; “but hold my nag a bit— I will be with you in 
the exchange of a wListle.” So saying, and ere Adam 
Woodcock could finish the sermon which was dying on his 
tongue, Roland Graeme, to the falconer’s utter astonish- 
ment, threw him the bridle of his jennet, jumped off horse- 
back, and pursued down one of the closes or narrow lanes, 
which, opening under a vault, terminate upon the main 
street, the very maiden to whom his friend had accused 
him of showing so much attention, and who had turned 
down the pass in question. 

“Saint Mary, Saint Magdalen, Saint Benedict, Saint 
Barnabas ! ” said the poor falconer, when he found himself 
thus suddenly brought to a pause in the midst of the 
Canongate, and saw his young charge start off like a mad- 
man in quest of a damsel whom he had never, as Adam 
supposed, seen in his life before,— “ Saint Satan and Saint 
Beelzebub — for this would make one swear saint and devil 
— what can have come over the lad, with a wanion ! And 
what shall I do the whilst ? — he will have his throat cut, 
the poor lad,- as sure as I was born at the foot of Roseberry- 
Topping. Could I find some one to hold the horses ! but 
they are as sharp here north-away as in canny Yorkshire 
herself, and quit bridle, quit titt, as we say. An I could 
but see one of our folks now, a holly-sprig were worth a 
gold tassel ; or could I but see one of the Regent’s men — 
but to leave the horses to a stranger, that I cannot — and to 
leave the place while the lad is in jeopardy, that I wonot.” 
We must leave the falconer, however, in the midst of his 


i66 


THE ABBOT. 


distress, and follow the hot-headed youth who was the 
cause of his perplexity. 

The latter part of Adam Woodcock’s sage remonstrances 
had been in a great measure lost upon Roland, for whose 
benefit it was intended ; because, in one of the female 
forms which tripped along the street, muffled in a veil of 
striped silk, like the wom.en of Brussels at this day, his 
eye had discerned something which closely resembled the 
exquisite shape and spirited bearing of Catherine Seyton.— 
During all the grave advice which the falconer was dinning 
in his ears, his eye continued intent upon so interesting an 
object of observation ; and at length, as the damsel, just 
about to dive under one of the arched passages which 
afforded an outlet to the Canongate from the houses be- 
neath (a passage, graced by a projecting shield of arms, 
supported by two huge foxes of stone), had lifted her veil 
for the purpose perhaps of descrying who the horseman 
was who for some time had eyed her so closely, young 
Roland saw, under the shade of the silken plaid, enough 
of the bright azure eyes, fair locks, and blithe features, to 
induce him, like an inexperienced and rash madcap, whose 
wilful ways never had been traversed by contradiction, nor 
much subjected to consideration, to throw the bridle of 
his horse into Adam Woodcock’s hand, and leave him to 
play the waiting gentleman, while he dashed down the 
paved court after Catherine Seyton— all as aforesaid. 

Women’s wits are proverbially quick, but apparently 
those of Catherine suggested no better expedient than 
fairly to betake herself to speed of foot, in hopes of baffling 
the page's vivacity, by getting safely lodged before he 
could discover where. But a youth of eighteen, in pursuit 
of a mistress, is not so easily outstripped. Catherine fled 
across a paved court, decorated with large formal vases of 
stone, in which yews, cypresses, and other evergreens, 
vegetated in sombre sullenness, and gave a correspondent 
degree of solemnity to the high and heavy building in 
front of which they were placed as ornaments, aspiring 
toward a square portion of the blue hemisphere, corre- 
sponding exactly in extent to the quadrangle in which they 
were stationed, and all around which rose huge black walls, 
exhibiting windows in rows of five stories, with heavy 
architraves over each, bearing armorial and religious 
devices. 

Through this court Catherine Seyton flashed like a 
hunted doe, making the best use of those pretty legs 


THE ABB07\ 


ir.- 


which had attracted the commendation even of the re- 
flective and cautious Adam Woodcock. She hastened 
toward a large door in the centre of the lower front of the 
court, pulled the bobbin till the latch flew up, and en- 
sconced herself in the ancient mansion. But, if she fled 
like a doe, Roland Graeme followed with the speed and 
ardor of a youthful staghound, loosed for the first time on 
his prey. He kept her in view in spite of her efforts ; for 
it is remarkable what an advantage, in such a race, the 
gallant who desires to see, possesses over the maiden who 
wishes not to be seen — an advantage which I have known 
counterbalance a great start in point of distance. In short, 
he saw the waving of her screen or veil, at one corner, 
heard the tap of her foot, light as that was, as it crossed 
the court, and caught a glimpse of her figure just as she 
entered the door of the mansion. 

Roland Graeme, inconsiderate and headlong as we have 
described him, having no knowledge of real life but from 
the romances which he had read, and not an idea of check- 
ing himself in the midst of any eager impulse, possessed, 
besides, of much courage and readiness, never hesitated 
for a moment to approach the door through which the ob- 
ject of his search had disappeared. He, tao, pulled the 
bobbin, and the latch, though heavy and massive, answered 
to the summons, and arose. The page entered with the 
same precipitation which had marked his whole proceed- 
ing, and found himself in a large hall, or vestibule, dimly 
enlightened by latticed casements of painted glass, and 
rendered yet dimmer through the exclusion of the sun- 
beams, owing to the height of the walls of those buildings 
by which the courtvard was enclosed. The walls of the 
hall were surrounded with suits of ancient and rusted armor, 
interchanged with huge and massive stone-scutcheons, 
bearing double tressures, fleured and counter-fleured, 
wheat-sheaves, coronets, and so forth, things to which Ro- 
land Graeme gave not a moment’s attention. 

In fact, he only deigned to observe the figure of Cath- 
erine Seyton, who, deeming herself safe in the hall, had 
stopped to take breath after her course, and was reposing 
herself for a moment on a large oaken settle which stood 
at the upper end of the hall. The noise of Roland’s en- 
trance at once disturbed her ; she started up with a faint 
scream of surprise, and escaped through one of the several 
folding doors which opened into this apartment as a com- 
mon centre. This door, which Roland Graeme instantly 


i68 


THE ABBOT. 


approached, opened on a large and well-lighted gallery, at 
the upper end of which he could hear several voices, and 
the noise of hasty steps approaching toward the hall or 
vestibule. A little recalled to sober thought by an appear- 
ance of serious danger, he was deliberating whether he 
should stand fast or retire, when Catherine Seyton re-en- 
tered from a side-door, running toward him with as much 
speed as a few minutes since she had fled from him. 

“ Oh, what mischief brought you hither ? ” she said ; “ fly 
— fly, or you are a dead man, — or stay — they come — flight 
is impossible — say you came to ask for Lord Seyton.” 

She sprung from him and disappeared through the door 
by which she had made her second appearance ; and at the 
same instant, a pair of large folding-doors at the upper 
end of the gallery flew open with vehemence, and six or 
seven young gentlemen, richly dressed, pressed forward 
into the apartment, having for the greater part their swords 
drawn. 

“ Who is it,” said one, “ dare intrude on us in our own 
mansion ? ” 

“ Cut him to pieces,” said another ; “ let him pay for 
this day’s insolence and violence — he is some follower of 
the Rothes.” 

“ No, by Saint Mary,” said another ; he is a follower 
of the arch-fiend and ennobled clown Halbert Glendin- 
ning, who takes the style of Avenel — once a church-vassal, 
now a pillager of the church.” 

‘‘ It is so,” said a fourth ; “ I know him by the holly- 
sprig, which is their cognizance. Secure the door, he must 
answer for this insolence.” 

Two of the gallants, hastily drawing, their weapons, passed 
on to the door by which Roland had entered the hall, and 
stationed themselves there as if to prevent his escape. 
The others advanced on Graeme, who had just sense enough 
to perceive that any attempt at resistance would be alike 
fruitless and imprudent. At once, and by various voices, 
none of which sounded amicably, the page was required to 
say who he was, whence he came, his name, his errand, 
and who sent him hither. The number of the questions 
denianded of him at once, afforded a momentary apology 
for his remaining silent, and ere that brief truce had elapsed 
a personage entered the hall, at whose appearance those 
who had gathered fiercely around Roland, fell back with 
respect. 

This was a tall man, whose dark hair was already grizzled, 


THE ABBOT, 


i6g 

though his eye and haughty features retained all the ani- 
mation of youth. The upper part of his person was un- 
dressed to his Holland shirt, whose ample folds were 
stained with blood. But he wore a mantle of crimson, 
lined with rich fur, cast around him, which supplied the 
deficiency of his dress. On his head he had a crimson vel- 
vet bonnet, looped up on one side with a small golden 
chain of many links, which, going thrice around the hat, 
was fastened by a medal, agreeable to the fashion among 
the grandees of the time. 

“ Whom have you here, sons and kinsmen,” said he, 
“ around whom you crowd thus roughly ? — Know you not 
that the shelter of this roof should secure every one fair 
treatment, who shall come hither either in fair peace, or in 
open and manly hostility ?” 

“ But here, my lord,” answered one of the youths, “ is a 
knave who comes on treacherous espial ! ” 

“ I deny the charge ! ” said Roland Graeme, boldly, “ I 
came to inquire after my Lord Seyton.” 

“ A likely tale,” answered his accusers, “in the mouth 
of a follower of Glendinning.” 

“ Stay, young men,” said the Lord Seyton, for it was that 
nobleman himself, “ let me look at this youth — By heaven, 
it is the very same who came so boldly to my side not very 
many minutes since, when some of my own knaves bore 
themselv^es with more respect to their own worshipful 
safety than to mine ! Stand back from him, for he well 
deserves honor and a friendly welcome at your hands, in- 
stead of this rough treatment.” 

They fell back on all sides, obedient to Lord Seyton’s 
commands, who, taking Roland Graeme by the hand, 
thanked him for his prompt and gallant assistance, adding, 
that he nothing doubted, “ the same interest which he had 
taken in his cause in the alfray, brought him hither to in- 
quire after his hurt.” 

Roland bowed low in acquiescence. 

“ Or is there anything in which I can serve you, to show 
my sense of your ready gallantry ? ” 

But the page, thinking it best to abide by the apology 
for his visit which the l.ord Seyton had so aptly himself 
suggested, replied, “that to be assured of his lordship’s 
safety had been the only cause of his intrusion. He 
judged,” he added, “he had seen him receive some hurt in 
the affray.” 

“A trifle,” said Lord Seyton ; “ I had but stripped my 


170 


THE ABBOT. 


doublet, that the chirurgeon might put some dressing on 
the paltry scratch, when these rash boys interrupted us 
with their clamor.” 

Roland Graeme, making a low obeisance, was now about 
to depart, for, relieved from the danger of being treated as 
a spy, he began next to fear that his companion, Adam 
Woodcock, whom he had so unceremoniously quitted, 
would either bring him into some further dilemma, by 
venturing into the hotel in quest of him, or ride off and 
leave him behind altogether. But Lord Seyton did not 
permit him to escape so easily. — “Tarry,” he said, “young 
man, and let me know thy rank and name. The Seyton 
has of late been more wont to see friends and followers 
shrink from his side, than to receive aid from strangers — 
but a new world may come round, in which he may have 
the chance of rewarding his well-wishers.” 

“ My name is Roland Graeme, my lord,” answered the 
youth, “ a page, who, for the present, is in the service of 
Sir Halbert Glendinning.” 

“ I said so from the first,” said one of the young men ; 
“ my life I will wager, that this is a shaft out of the here- 
tic’s quiver — a stratagem from first to last, to ingyre into 
your confidence some espial of his own. They know 
how to teach both boys and women to play the intelli- 
gencers.” 

“ That is false, if it be spoken of me,” said Roland ; “no 
man in Scotland should teach me such a foul part!” 

“ I believe thee, boy,” said Lord Seyton, “for thy strokes 
were too fair to be dealt upon an understanding with those 
that were to receive them. Credit me, however, I little 
expected to have help at need from one of your master’s 
household ; and I would know what moved thee in my 
quarrel, to thine own endangering! ” 

“So please you, my lord,” said Roland, “I think my 
master himself would not have stood by, and seen an hon- 
orable man borne to earth by odds, if his single arm could 
help him. Such, at least, is the lesson we were taught in 
chivalry at the Castle of Avenel.” 

“ The good Seed hath fallen into good ground, young 
man, said Seyton ; “but, alas ! if thou practise such hon- 
orable war in these dishonorable days, where right is every- 
wheie borne down by mastery, thy life, my poor boy, will 
be but a short one.” ^ J 

“ Let it be short, so it be honorable,” said Roland Grseme ; 
and permit me now, my lord, to commend me to your 


THE ABBOT. 


7 


grace, and to take m)^ leave. A comrade waits with my 
horse in the street.” 

“ Take this, however, young man,” said Lord Seyton,* 
undoing from his bonnet the golden chain and medal, 
“and wear it for my sake.” 

With no little pride Roland Graeme accepted the gift, 
which he hastily fastened around his bonnet, as he had 
seen gallants wear such an ornament, and renewing his 
obeisance to the Baron, left the hall, traversed the court, 
and appeared in the street, just as Adam Woodcock, vexed 
and anxious at his delay, had determined to leave the 
horses to their fate, and go in quest of his youthful com- 
rade. “Whose barn hast thou broken next?” he ex- 
claimed, greatly relieved by his appearance, although his 
countenance indicated that he had passed through an agi- 
tating scene. 

“Ask me no questions,” said Roland, leaping gayly on 
his horse ; “but see how short time it takes to win a chain 
of gold,” pointing to that which he now wore. 

“ Now, God forbid that thou hast either stolen it, or reft 
it by violence,” said the falconer ; “ for, otherwise, I wot 
not how the devil thou couldst compass it. I have been 
often here, ay, for months at an end, and no one gave me 
either chain or medal.” 

9 “ Thou seest I have got one on shorter acquaintance with 

the city,” answered the page, “but set thine honest heart 
at rest ; that which is fairly won and freely given, is neither 
reft nor stolen.” 

“Marry, hang thee, wdth thy fanfaronaf about thy 
neck ! ” said the falconer ; “ I think water will not drown, 
nor hemp strangle thee. Thou hast been discarded as my 
lady’s page, to come in again as my lord’s squire, and for 
following a noble young damsel into some great household, 
thou gettest a chain and medal, where another would have 
had the baton across his shoulders, if he missed having the 
dirk in his body. — But here we come in front of the old 
Abbey. Bear thy good luck with you when you cross 
these paved stones, and, by Our Lady, you may brag Scot- 
land.” 

As he spoke, they checked their horses, where the huge 
old vaulted entrance to the Abbey or Palace of Holyrood 

* Note J. Seyton or Seton. 

f A name given to the gold chains worn by the military men of the 
period. It is of Spanish origin ; for the fashion of wearing these costly 
ornaments was much followed among the conquerors of the New World. 


172 


THE ABBOT, 


crossed the termination of the street down which they had 
proceeded. The courtyard of the palace opened witiiin 
this gloomy porch, showing the front of an irregular pile 
of monastic buildings, one wing of which is still extant, 
forming a part of the modern palace, erected in the days 
of Charles II. 

At the gate of the porch the falconer and page resigned 
their horses to the serving-man in attendance ; the falconer 
commanding him, with an air of authority, to carry them 
safely to the stables. — “ We follow,” he said, “ the Knight 
of Avenel. — We must bear ourselves for what Ave are here,” 
said he, in a whisper to Roland, “ for every one here is 
looked on as they demean themselves ; and he that is too 
modest must to the wall, as the proverb says ; therefore 
cock thy bonnet, man, and let us brook the causeway 
bravely.” 

Assuming, therefore, an air of consequence, correspond- 
ing to what he supposed to be his master’s importance 
and quality, Adam Woodcock led the way into the court- 
yard of the Palace of Holyrood. 


CHAPTER EIGHTEENTH. 

The sky is clouded, Gaspard, 

And the vex’d ocean sleeps a troubled sleep, 

Beneath a lurid gleam of parting sunshine. 

Such slumber hangs o’er discontented lands, 

While factions doubt, as yet, if they have strength 
To front the open battle. 

Albion — A Poem. 

The youthful page paused on the entrance of the court- 
yard, and implored his guide to give him a moment’s 
breathing space. “ Let me but look around me, man,” 
said he ; “you consider not I have never seen such a scene 
as this before. — And this is Holyrood — the resort of the 
gallant and gay, and the fair, and the wise, and the power- 
ful ! ^ 

‘ Ay, marry, is it !” said Woodcock ; “ but I wish I could 
hood thee as they do the hawks, for thou starest as wildly 
as if you sought another fray or another fanfarona. I 
would I had thee safely housed, for thou lookest wild as a 
goss-hawk.” 

It was indeed no common sight to Roland, the vestibule 


the abbot. 


173 

of a palace, traversed by its various groups — some radiant 
\\dth gayety— some pensive, and apparently weighed down 
affairs concerning the state, or concerning themselves. 
Here the hoaiy statesman, with his cautious yet command- 
ing look, his furred cloak and sable pantoufles j there the 
soldier in buff and steel, his long sword jarring against the 
pavement, and his whiskered upper lip and frowning brow, 
looking an habitual defiance of danger, which perhaps was 
not always made good ; there again passed my lord’s serv- 
ing-man, high of heart, and bloody of hand, humble to his 
master and his master’s equals, insolent to all others. To 
these might be added, the poor suitor, with his anxious 
look and depressed mien— the officer, full of his brief 
authority, elbowing his betters, and possibly his benefac- 
tors, out of the road — the proud priest who sought a better 
benefice— the proud baron who sought a grant of church 
lands— the robber chief, who came to solicit a pardon for 
the injuries he had inflicted on his neighbors— the plun- 
dered franklin, who came to seek vengeance for that which 
he had hirnself received. Besides there was the mustering 
and disposition of guards and soldiers — the despatching of 
messengers, and the receiving them— the trampling and 
neighing of horses without the gate— the flashing of arms, 
and rustling of plumes, and jingling of spurs, within it. In 
short, it was that gay and splendid confusion, in which the 
eye of youth sees all that is brave and brilliant, and that of 
experience much that is doubtful, deceitful, false, and hol- 
low hopes that will never be gratified — promises which 
will never be fulfilled— pride in the disguise of humility— 
and insolence in that of frank and generous bounty. 

As, tired of the eager and enraptured attention which 
the page gave to a scene so new to him, Adam Woodcock 
endeavored to get him to move forward, before his exub- 
erance of astonishment should attract the observation of 
the sharp-witted denizens of the court, the falconer him- 
self became an object of attention to a gay menial in a 
dark -green bonnet and feather, with a cloak of a corre- 
sponding color, laid down, as the phrase then went, by six 
broad bars of silver lace, and welted with violet and silver. 
The words of recognition burst from both at once. “ What ! 
Adam Woodcock at court!” and “What! Michael Wing- 
the-wind — and how runs the hackit greyhound bitch 
now ? ” 

“The waur for the wear, like ourselves, Adam — eight 
years this grass — no four legs will carry a dog forever ; but 


174 


THE ABBOT 


we keep her for the breed, and so she ’scapes Border doom. 
— But why stand you gazing there ? I promise you my 
lord has wished for you, and asked for you.” 

“ My Lord of Murray asked for me, and he Regent of 
the kingdom too !” said Adam. “ I hunger and thirst to 
pay my duty to my good lord ; but I fancy his good lord- 
ship remembers the day’s sport on Carnwath moor ; and 
my Drummelzier falcon that beat the hawks from the Isle 
of Man, and won his lordship a hundred crowns from the 
Southern baron whom they call Stanley.” 

“ Nay, not to flatter thee, Adam,” said his court friend, 
“he remembers naught of thee, or of thy falcon either. 
He hath flown many a higher flight since that, and struck 
his quarry too. But come, come hither away ; I trust we 
are to be good comrades on the old score.” 

“What !” said Adam, “you would have me crush a pot 
with you ; but I must first dispose of my eyas, where he 
will neither have girl to chase, nor lad to draw sword 
upon.” 

“ Is the youngster such a one ?” said Michael. 

“Ay, by my hood, he flies at all game,” replied Wood- 
cock. 

“ Then had he better come with us,” said Michael Wing- 
the-wind ; “for we cannot have a proper carouse just now, 
only I would wet my lips, and so must you. I want to 
hear the news from Saint Mary’s before you see my lord, 
and I will let you know how the wind sits up yonder.” 

While he thus spoke he led the way to a side-door 
which opened into the court ; and threading several dark 
passages with the air of one who knew the most secret 
recesses of the palace, conducted them to a small matted 
chamber, where he placed bread and cheese and a foaming 
flagon of ale before the falconer and his young compan- 
ion, who imrnediately did justice to the latter in a hearty 
draught, which nearly emptied the measure. Having 
drawn his breath, and dashed the froth from his whiskers, 
he observed that his anxiety for the boy had made him 
deadly dry. 

“ Mend your draught,” said his hospitable friend, again 
supplying the flagon from a pitcher which stood beside. 

1 Know the way to the buttery-bar. And now mind what 
I say— -this morning the Earl of Morton came to mv lord 
in a mighty chafe.” 

‘' What ! they keep the old friendship, then ? ” said Wood- 
cock. 


THE ABBOT. 


175 


“Ay, ay, man, what else?” said Michael; “one hand 
must scratch the other. But in a miglity chafe was my 
Lord of Morton, who, to say truth, looketh on such occa- 
sions altogether uncanny, and, as it were, fiendish ; and he 
says to my lord, — for I was in the chamber taking orders 
about a cast of hawks that are to be fetched from Darn- 
away — they match your long-winged falcons, friend Adam.” 

“ I will believe that when I see them fly as high a pitch,” 
replied Woodcock, this professional observation forming 
a sort of parenthesis. 

“ However,” said Michael, pursuing his tale, “ my Lord 
of Morton, in a mighty chafe, asked my Lord Regent 
whether he was well dealt with — ‘for my brother,’ said he, 
‘should have had a gift to be Commendator of Kennaqu- 
hair, and to have all the temporalities erected into a lord- 
ship of regality for his benefit ; and here,’ said he, ‘ the 
false monks have had the insolence to choose a new Ab- 
bot to put his claim in my brother’s way ; and moreover, 
the rascality of the neighborhood have burnt and plun- 
dered all that was left in the Abbey, so that my brother will 
not have a house to dwell in, when he hath ousted the lazy 
hounds of priests.’ And my lord, seeing him chafed, said 
mildly to him, ‘ These are shrewd tidings, Douglas, but I 
trust they be not true ; for Halbert Glendinning went 
southward yesterday, wdth a band of spears, and assuredly, 
had either of these chances happened, that the monks had 
presumed to choose an Abbot, or that the Abbey had 
been burnt, as you say, he had taken order on the spot for 
the punishment of such insolence, and had despatched us 
a messenger.’ And the Earl of Morton replied — now I 
pray you, Adam, to notice that I say this out of love to 
you and your lord, and also for old comradeship, and also 
because Sir Halbert hath done me good, and may again — 
and also because I love not the Earl of Morton, as indeed 
more fear than like him— so then it were a foul deed in 
you to betray me.— ‘ ButyJ said the Earl to the Regent, 

‘ take heed, my lord, you trust not this Glendinning too 
far — he comes of churl’s blood, which was never true to the 
nobles ’ — by Saint Andrew, these were his very words. — 
‘ And besides,’ he said, ‘he hath a brother,' a monk in Saint 
Mary’s, and walks all by his guidance, and is making friends 
on the Border with Buccleuch and with Fernieherst,* and 
will join hand with them, were there likelihood of a new 


Both these Border Chieftains were great friends of Queen Mary. 


176 


THE ABBOT, 


world.’ And my lord answered, like a free noble lord as 
he is : ‘ Tush ! my Lord of Morton, I will be warrant for 
Glendinning’s faith ; and foiihis brother, he is a dreamer, 
that thinks of naught but book and breviary — and if such 
hap have chanced as you tell of, I look to receive from 
Glendinning tlie cowl of a hanged monk, and the head of 
a riotous churl, by way of sharp and sudden justice.’ — And 
my Lord of Morton left the place, and, as it seemed to me, 
somewhat malcontent. But since that time, my Lord has 
asked me more than once whether there has "arrived no 
messenger from the Knight of Avenel. And all this I 
have told you, that you may frame your discourse to the 
best purpose, for it seems to me that my lord will not be 
well pleased, if aught has happened like what my Lord of 
Morton said, and if your lord hath not ta’en strict orders 
with it.” 

There was something in this communication which fairly 
blanked the bold, visage of Adam Woodcock, in spite of 
the reinforcement which his natural hardihood had re- 
ceived from the berry-brown ale of Holyrood. 

“What was it he said about a churl’s head, that grim 
Lord of Morton ? ” said the discontented falconer to his 
friend. 


“Nay, it was my Lord Regent, who said that he expected, 
if the Abbey was injured, your Knight would send him the 
head of the ringleader among the rioters.” 

“ Nay, but is this done like a good Protestant,” said 
Adam W^oodcock, “or a true Lord of the Congregation ? 
We used to be their white-boys and darlings when we pulled 
down the convents in Fife and Perthshire.” 

“Ay, but that,” said Michael, “was when old mother 
Rome held her own, and her great folks were determined 
she should have no shelter for her head in Scotland. But, 
now that the priests are fled in all quarters, and their 
houses and lands are given to our grandees, they cannot 
see that we are working the work of reformation in de- 
stroying the palaces of zealous Protestants.” 

Mary’s is not destroyed!” said 
Woodcock in increasing agitation ; “some trash of painted 
windows there -were broken— things that no nobleman 
could have brooked in his house— some stone saints were 
brought on their marrowbones, like old Widdrington at 

fire-raising, there was not so 
thP ^ amongst us, save the match which 

he dragon had to light the burning tow withal, which he 


THE ABBOT, 


177 


was to spit against Saint George ; nay, I had caution of 
that.” 

“How! Adam Woodcock,” said his comrade, “I trust 
thou hadst no hand in such a fair work ? Look you, Adam, 
I were loth to terrify you, and you just come from a 
journey ; but I promise you, Earl Morton hath brought 
you down a Maiden from Halifax, you never saw the like 
of her— and she’ll clasp you round the neck, and your 
head will remain in her arms.” 

“ Pshaw ! ” answered Adam, “ I am too old to have my 
head turned by any maiden of them all. I know my Lord 
of Morton will go as far for a buxom lass as any one ; but 
what the devil took him to Halifax, all the way? and if he 
has got a gamester there, what hath she to do with my 
head?” 

“ Much, much ! ” answered Michael. “ Herod’s daughter, 
who did such execution with her foot and ankle, danced 
not men’s heads off more cleanly than this maiden of Mor- 
ton.* ’Tis an axe, man, — an axe which falls of itself like 
a sash window, and never gives the headsman the trouble 
to wield it.” 

“ By my faith a shrewd device,” said Woodcock ; ‘^heaven 
keep us free on’t ! ” 

The page, seeing no end to the conversation betwixt 
these two old comrades, and anxious, from what he had 
heard, concerning the fate of the Abbot, now interrupted 
their conference. 

“ Methinks,” he said, “Adam Woodcock, thou hadst bet- 
ter deliver my master’s letter to the Regent ; questionless 
he hath therein stated what has chanced at Kennaquhair, 
in the way most advantageous for all concerned.” 

“The boy is right,” said Michael Wing-tlie-wind, “my 
lord will be very impatient.” 

“The child hath wit enough to keep himself warm,” 
said Adam Woodcock, producing from his hawking-bag 
his lord’s letter, addressed to the Earl of Murray, “and for 
that matter so have I. So, Master Roland, you will e’en 
please to present this yourself to the Lord Regent ; his 

* Maiden of Morton — a species of Guillotine which the Regent Morton 
brought down from Halifax, certainly at a period considerably later than 
intimated in the tale. He was himself the first who suffered by the engine. 

[This instrument, which is preserved in the Antiquarian Museum of 
Edinburgh, was brought to Scotland several years earlier than popular 
tradition assigns, and is said to have been used for the execution of crimi- 
nals about twenty years before the Earl of Morton was beheaded, in 1582.] 


12 


178 


THE .IB EOT 


presence will be better graced by a young page than by 
an old falconer.” 

“Well said, canny Yorkshire !” replied his friend ; “and 
but now you were so earnest to see our good lord !- — Wliy, 
wouldst thou put the lad into the noose that thou mayest 
slip tether thyself ? — or dost thou think the maiden will 
clasp his fair young neck more willingly than thy old sun- 
burnt weasand ? ” 

“ Go to,” answered the falconer ; “ thy wit towers high an 
it could strike the quarry. I tell thee, the youth has naught 
to fear — he had notliing to do with the gambol — a rare 
gambol it was, Michael, as madcaps ever played ; and I 
had made as rare a ballad, if we had had the luck to get it 
sung to an end. But mum for th^t—face, as I said before, 
is Latin for a candle. Carry the youth to the presence, 
and I will remain here, with bridle in hand, ready to strike 
the spurs up to the rowel-heads, in case the hawk flies my 
way. — I will soon put Sutra-Edge, I trow, betwixt the 
Regent and me, if he means me less than fair play.” 

“ Come on then, my lad,” said Michael, “since thou must 
needs take the spring befoi-e canny Yorkshire.” So saying, 
he led the way through winding passages, closely followS 
by Roland Graeme, until they arrived at a large winding 
stone stair, the steps of which were so long and broad, 
and at tlie same time so low, as to render the ascent un- 
commonly easy. When they had ascended about the 
height of one story, the guide stepped aside, and pushed 
open the door of a dark and gloomy antechamber ; so dark, 
indeed, that his youthful companion stumbled, and nearly 
fell down upon a low step, which was awkwardly placed 
on the very threshold. 

lake heed,” said Michael Wing-tbe-wind, in a very 
low tone of voice, and first glancing cautiously round to 
see if any one listened — “Take heed, my young friend, for 
those who fall on these boards seldom rise again — Seest 
thou that, ’ he added, in a still lower voice, pointing to 
some dark crimson stains on the floor, on which a ray of 
light, shot through a small aperture, and traversino- the 
general gloom of the apartment, fell with mottled radiance 

beest thou that, youth ? — walk warily, for men have 
fallen here before you.” 

What mean you,” said the page, his flesh creeping, 
thougli he scarce knew why ; “ Is it blood ?” 

“Ay, ay” said the domestic, in the same whispering 
tone, and dragging the youth on by the arm~“ Blood it 


THE ABBOT. 


179 


is, — but this is no time to question, or even to look at it. 
Blood it is, foully and fearfully shed, as foully and fear- 
fully avenged. The blood,” he added, in a still more 
cautious tone, “of Seignior David.” 

Roland Graeme’s heart throbbed when he found himself 
so unexpectedly in the scene of Rizzio’s slaughter, a catas- 
trophe which had chilled with horror all even in that rude 
age, which had been the theme of wonder and pity through 
every cottage and castle in Scotland, and had not escaped 
that of Avenel. But his guide hurried him forward, per- 
mitting no farther question, and with the manner of one 
who has already tampered too much with a dangerous 
subject. A tap which he made at a low door at one end 
of the vestibule, was answered by a huissier or usher, who, 
opening it cautiously, received Michael’s intimation that a 
page waited the Regent’s leisure, who brought letters from 
the Knight of Avenel. 

“ The Council is breaking up,” said the usher ; “ but give 
me the packet ; his Grace the Regent will presently see the 
messenger.” 

“ The packet,” replied the page, “ must be delivered into 
the Regent’s own hands ; such were the orders of my mas- 
ter.” 

The usher looked at him from head to foot, as if sur- 
prised at his boldness, and then replied with some asperity, 
“Say you so, my young master? Thou crowest loudly to 
be but a chicken, and from a country barn-yard too.” 

“Were it a time or place,” said Roland, “thou shouldst 
see I can do more than crow ; but do your duty, and let 
the Regent know I wait his pleasure.” 

“ Thou art but a pert knave to tell me of my duty,” said 
the courtier in office ; “ but I will find a time to show you 
you are out of yours ; meanwhile, wait there till you are 
wanted.” So saying, he shut the door in Roland’s face. 

Michael Wing-the-wihd, who had shrunk from his youth- 
ful companion during this altercation, according to the 
established maxim of courtiers of all ranks, and in all ages, 
now transgressed their prudential line of conduct so far as 
to come up to him once more. “ Thou art a hopeful young 
springald,” said he, “and I see right well old Yorkshire 
had reason in his caution. Thou hast been five minutes in 
the court, and hast employed thy time so well, as to make 
a powerful and a mortal enemy out of the usher of the 
council-chamber. Why, man, you might almost as well 
have offended the deputy butler.” 


i8o 


THE ABBOT. 


“ I care not what he is,” said Roland Graeme ; “ I will 
teach whomever I speak with to speak civilly to me in re- 
turn. I did not come from Avenel to be browbeaten in 
Holyrood.” 

“ Bravo, my lad ! ” said Michael ; “ it is a fine spirit if 
you can but hold it — but see, the door opens.” 

The usher appeared, and, in a more civil tone of voice 
and manner, said, that his Grace the Regent would receive 
the Knight of Avenel’s message ; and accordingly mar- 
shalled Roland Graeme the way into the apartment, frbjn 
whicli the Council had been just dismissed, after finishing 
their consultations. There was in the room a long oaken 
table, surrounded by stools of the same wood, with a large 
elbow chair, covered with crimson velvet, at the head. 
Writing materials and papers were lying there in apparent 
disorder ; and one or two of the privy counsellors who 
had lingered behind, assuming their cloaks, bonnets, and 
swords, and bidding farewell to the Regent, were depart- 
ing slowly by a large door, on the opposite side to that 
through which the page entered. Apparently the Earl of 
Murray had made some jest, for the smiling countenances 
of the statesmen expressed that sort of cordial reception 
which is paid by courtiers to the condescending pleasant- 
ries of a prince. 

The Regent himself was laughing heartily as he said, 
“ Farewell, my lords, and hold me remembered to the 
Cock of the North.” . 

He then turned slowly round toward Roland Graeme, 
and the marks of gayety, real or assumed, disappeared from 
his countenance, as completely as the passing bubbles 
leave the dark mirror of a still, profound lake into which 
a traveller has cast a stone ; in the course of a minute his 
noble features had assumed their natural expression of 
deep and even melancholy gravity. 

This distinguished statesman, for as such his worst ene- 
mies acknowledged him, possessed all the external dignity, 
as well as almost all the noble qualities, which could grace 
the power that he enjoyed ; and had he succeeded to the 
throne as his legitimate inheritance, it is probable he would 
have been recorded as one of Scotland’s wisest and greatest 
kings. But that he held his authority by the deposition 
and imprisonment of his sister and benefactress, was a 
crime which those only can excuse who think ambition an 
apology for ingratitude. He was dressed plainly in black 
velvet, after the Flemish fashion, and wore in his higl> 


THE ABBOT 


i8i 


crowned hat a jewelled clasp, which looped it up on one 
side, and formed the only ornament of his apparel. He 
had his poniard by liis side, and his sword lay on the 
council table. 

Such was the personage before whom Roland Graeme 
now presented himself, with a feeling of breathless awe, 
very different from the usual boldness and vivacity of his 
temper. In fact, he was, from education and nature, for- 
ward, but not impudent, and was much more easily con- 
trolled by the moral superiority arising from the elevated 
talents and renown of those with whom he conversed, than 
by pretensions founded only on rank or external show. 
He might have braved with indifference the presence of 
an earl, merely distinguished by his belt and coronet ; but 
he felt overawed in that of the eminent soldier and states- 
man, the wielder of a nation’s power, and the leader of her 
armies. — The greatest and wisest are flattered by the defer- 
ence of youth — so graceful and becoming in itself ; and 
Murray took, with much courtesy, the letter from the 
hands of the abashed and blushing page, and answered 
with complaisance to the imperfect and half-muttered 
greeting, which he endeavored to deliver to him on the 
part of Sir Halbert of Avenel.* He even paused a moment, 
ere he broke the silk with which the letter was secured, to 
ask the page his name — so much he was struck with his 
very handsome features and form. 

“ Roland Graham,” he said, repeating the words after 
the hesitating page. “What ! of the Grahams of the Len- 
nox ? ” 

“No, my lord,” replied Roland ; “my parents dwelt in 
the Debatable Land.” 

Murray made no further inquiry, but proceeded to read 
his dispatches ; during the perusal of which his brow 
began to assume a stern expression of displeasure as that 
of one who found something which at once surprised and 
disturbed him. He sat down on the nearest seat, frowned 
till his eyebrows almost met together, read the letter twice 
over, and was then silent for several minutes. At length, 
raising his head, his eye encountered that of the usher, 
who in vain endeavored to exchange the look of eager and 
curious observation with which he had been perusing the 

* [In describing the introduction of Roland Graeme to the Regent 
Murray, I think it very probable that Scott had in mind his own first 
interview with the Duke of Wellington in Paris, after the battle of Water- 
loo.—]. G. Lockhart.] 


THE ABBOT. 


182 

Regent’s features for that open and unnoticing expression 
of countenance, which, in looking at all, seems as if it 
saw and marked nothing — a cast of look which may be 
practised with advantage by all those, of whatever degree, 
who are admitted to witness the familiar and unguarded 
hours of their superiors. Great men are as jealous of their 
thoughts as the wife of King Candaules was of her charms, 
and will as readil}" punish those who have, however invol- 
untarily, beheld them in mental deshabille and exposure. 

“Leave the apartment, Hyndman,” said the Regent, 
sternly, “and carry your observation elsewhere. You are 
too knowing sir, for your post, which by special order, is 
destined for men of blunter capacity. So ! now you look 
more like a fool than you did ” — (for Hyndman, as may 
easily be supposed, was not a little disconcerted by this 
rebuke) — “ keep that confused stare, and it may keep your 
office. Begone, sir!” 

The usher departed in dismay, not forgetting to register, 
amongst his other causes of dislike to Roland Graeme, 
that he had been the witness of this disgraceful chiding. 
When he had left the apartment, the Regent again ad- 
dressed the page. 

“Your name, you say, is Armstrong ?” 

“No,” replied Roland, “my name is Graeme, so please 
you — Roland Graeme, whose forbears were designated of 
Heathergill, in the Debatable Land.” 

“Ay, I knew it was a name from the Debatable Land, 
Hast thou any acquaintance in Edinburgh ?” 

“My lord,” replied Roland, willing rather to evade this 
question than to answer it directly, for the prudence of 
being silent with respect to Lord Seyton’s adventure im- 
mediately struck him, “ I have been in Edinburgh scarce 
an hour, and that for the first time in my life.” 

“What! and thou Sir Halbert Glendinning’s paee?” 
said the Regent. 

“ I was brought up as my Lady’s page,” said the vouth, 
“and left Avenel Castle for the first time in my life — at 
least since my childhood — only three days since.” 

“My Lady’s page !” repeated the Earl of Murray, as if 
speaking to himself ; “ it was strange to send his Lady’s 
page on a matter of such deep concernment — Morton will 
say it is of a piece with the nomination of his brother to 
some sort an inexperienced vouth 
will best seiwe the turn. — What hast thou been taught, 
young man, in thy doughty apprenticeship?” 


THE ABBOT. 


183 

“ To hunt, my lord, and to hawk,” said Roland Graeme. 

“To hunt conies, and to hawk at ousels !” said the Re- 
gent, smiling ; “ for such are the sports of ladies and their 
followers.” 

Graeme’s cheek reddened deeply as he replied, not with- 
out some emphasis, “ To hunt red-deer of the first head, 
and to strike down herons of the highest soar, my lord, 
which, in Lothian speech, may be termed, for aught I 
know, conies and ousels ; — also I can wield a brand and 
couch a lance, according to our Border meaning ; in 
inland speech these may be termed water-flags and bul- 
rushes.” 

“ Thy speech rings like metal,” said the Regent, “ and I 
pardon the sharpness of it for tLe truth. Thou knowest, 
then, what belongs to the duty of a man-at-arms ? ” 

“ So far as exercise can teach it without real service in 
the field,” answered Roland Graeme ; “ but our Knight 
permitted none of his household to make raids, and I 
never had the good fortune to see a stricken field.” 

“ The good fortune ! ” repeated the Regent, smiling 
somewhat sorrowfully, “ take my word, young man, war is 
the only game from which both parties rise losers.” 

“Not always, my lord!” answered the page, with his 
characteristic audacity, “if fame speaks truth.” 

“ How, sir ? ” said the Regent, coloring in his turn, and 
perhaps suspecting an indiscreet allusion to the height 
which he himself had attained by the hap of civil war. 

“ Because, my lord,” said Roland Grteme, without 
change of tone, “ he who fights well, must have fame in 
life, or honor in death ; and so war is a game from which 
no one can rise a loser.” 

The Regent smiled and shook his head, when at that 
moment the door opened, and the Earl of Morton pre- 
sented himself. 

“ I come somewhat hastily,” he said, “and I enter un- 
announced becausj^ my news are of weight — It is as I said ; 
Edward Glendinning is named Abbot, and ” 

“Hush, my lord!” said the Regent, “I know it, 
but ” 

“And perhaps you knew it before I did, my Lord of 
Murray,” answered Morton, his dark red brow growing 
darker and redder as he spoke. 

“Morton,” said Murray, “suspect me not — touch not 
mine honor — I have to suffer enough from the calumnies 
of foes, let me not have to contend with the unjust sus- 


THE ABBOT. 


1S4 

picions of rny friends. — We are not alone,” said he, recol- 
lecting himself, “or I could tell you more.” 

He led Morton into one of the deep embrasures which 
the windows formed in the massive wall, and which af- 
forded a retiring place for their conversing apart. In this 
recess, Roland observed them speak together with much 
earnestness, Murray appearing to be grave and earnest, 
and Morton having a jealous and offended air, which 
seemed gradually to give way to the assurances of the 
Regent. 

As their conversation grew more earnest, they became 
gradually louder in speech, having perhaps forgotten the 
presence of the page, the more readily as his position in 
the apartment placed him out of sight, so that he found 
himself unwillingly privy to more of their discourse than 
he cared to hear. For, page though he was, a mean curi- 
osity after the secrets of others had never been numbered 
among Roland’s failings ; and moreover, with all his 
natural rashness, he could not but doubt the safety of be- 
coming privy to the secret discourse of these powerful and 
dreaded men. Still he could neither stop his ears, nor with 
propriety leave the apartment ; and while he thought of 
some means of signifying his presence, he had already 
heard so much, that, to have produced himself suddenly 
would have been as awkward, and perhaps as dangerous, 
as in quiet to abide the end of their conference. What he 
overheard, however, was but an imperfect part of their 
communication ; and although an expert politician, ac- 
quainted with the circumstances of the times, would have 
had little difficulty in tracing the meaning, yet Roland 
Graeme could only form very general and vague conject- 
ures as to the import of their discourse. 

“ All is prepared,” said Murray, “ and Lindesay is setting 
forward — She must hesitate no longer — thou seest I act 
by thy counsel, and harden myself against softer con- 
siderations.” 

“True, my lord,” replied Morton, “in what is necessary 
to gain power, you do not hesitate, but go boldly to the 
maik. But are you as careful to defend and preserve 
what you have won ? — Why this establishment of domes- 
tiCb aiound her ? — has not your sister men and maidens 
enough to tend her, but you must consent to this super- 
fluous and dangerous retinue ? ” 

“ For shame, Morton ! — a Princess, and my sister, could 
1 do less than allow her due tendance ? ” 


THE ABBOT. 


i8s 

“ Ay,” replied Morton, “ even thus fly all your shafts — 
smartly enough loosened from the bow, and not unskilfully 
aimed — but a breath of foolish affection ever crosses in the 
mid volley and sways the arrow from the mark.” 

“ Say not so, Morton,” replied Murray; “I have both 
dared and done” 

Yes, enough to gain, but not enough to keep — reckon 
not that she will think and act thus — you have wounded 
her deeply, both in pride and in power — it signifies naught 
that you would tent now the wound with unavailing salves 
— as matters stand with you, you must forfeit the title of 
an affectionate brother to hold that of a bold and deter- 
mined statesman.” 

Morton ! ” said Murray, with some impatience, “ I 
brook not these taunts — what I have done I have done — 
what I must farther do, I must and will — but I am not 
made of iron like thee, and I cannot but remember — 
Enough of this — my purpose holds.” 

“ And I warrant me,” said Morton, “ the choice of these 

domestic consolations will rest with” 

Here he whispered names which escaped Roland 
Graeme’s ear. Murray replied in a similar tone, but so 
much raised toward the conclusion of the sentence that the 
page heard these words — “ And of him I hold myself secure 
by Glendinning’s recommendation.” 

“Ay, which may be as much trustworthy as his late con- 
duct at the Abbey of Saint Mary’s — you have heard that 
his brother’s election has taken place. Your favorite Sir 
Halbert, my Lord of Murray, has as much fraternal affec- 
tion as yourself.” 

“ By heaven, Morton, that taunt demanded an unfriendly 
answer, but I pardon it, for your brother also is concerned ; 
but this election shall be annulled. I tell you, Earl of 
Morton, while I hold the sword of state in my royal 
nephew’s name, neither Lord nor Knight in Scotland shall 
dispute my authority ; and if I bear with insults from my 
friends, it is only while I know them to be such, and for- 
give their follies for their faithfulness.” 

Morton muttered what seemed to be some excuse, and 
the Regent answered him in a milder tone, and then sub- 
joined, “ Besides, I have another pledge than Glendin- 
ning’s recommendation for this youth’s fidelity — his nearest 
relative has placed herself in my hands as his security, to 
be dealt withal as his doings shall deserve.” 

“That is something,” replied Morton ; “but yet in fair 


i86 


THE ABBOT. 


love and good-will, I must still pray you to keep on your 
guard. The foes are stirring again, as horse-flies and 
hornets become busy so soon as the storm-blast is over. 
George of Seyton was crossing the causeway this morning 
with a score of men at his back, and had a ruffle with my 
friends of the house of Leslie— they met at the Tron, and 
were fighting hard, when the provost, with his guard of 
partisans, came in thirdsman, and staved them asunder 
with their halberds, as men part dog and bear.” 

“He hath my order for such interference,” said the 
Regent — “ Has any one been hurt ? ” 

“George of Seyton himself, by black Ralph Leslie — the 
devil take the rapier that ran not through from side to 
side ! Ralph has a bloody coxcomb, by a blow from a 
messan-page whom nobody knew — Dick Seyton of Windy- 
gowl is run through the arm, and two gallants of the 
Leslies have suffered phlebotomy. This is all the gentle 
blood which has been spilled in the revel ; but a yeoman 
or two on both sides have had bones broken and ears 
chopped. The ostlere-wives, who are like to be the only 
losers by their miscarriage, have dragged the knaves off 
the street, and are crying a drunken coronach over them.” 

“You take it lightly, Douglas,” said the Regent ; “these 
broils and feuds would shame the capital of the great 
Turk, let alone that of a Christian and reformed state. 
But, if I live, this gear shall be amended ; and men shall 
say, when they read my story, that if it were my cruel hap 
to rise to power by the dethronement of a sister, I em- 
ployed it, when gained, for the benefit of the commonweal.” 

“ And of your friends,” replied Morton ; “ wherefore I 
trust for your instant order annulling the election of this 
lurdane Abbot, Edward Glendinning.” 

“You shall be presently satisfied,” said the Regent ; and 
stepping forward, he began to call, “ So, ho, Hyndman ! ” 
when suddenly his eye lighted on Roland Greeine — “ By 
my faith, Douglas,” said he, turning to his friend, “ here 
have been three at counsel ! ” 

“Ay, but only two can keep counsel,” said Morton; 
“ the galliard must be disposed of.” 

“For shame, Morton — an orphan boy! — Hearken thee, 
my child — Thou hast told me some of thy accomplishments 
— canst thou speak truth?” 

“ A.y, my lord, when it serves my turn,” replied Graeme. 

“ It shall serve thy turn now,” said the Regent ; “ and 
falsehood shall be thy destruction. How much hast thou 


THFL ABBOT. 


187 


heard or understood of what we two have spoken to- 
gether?” 

“ But little, my lord,” replied Roland Graeme boldly, 
“ which met my apprehension, saving that it seemed to me 
as if in something you doubted the faith of the Knight of 
Avenel, under whose roof I was nurtured.” 

“ And what liastthou to say on that point, young man ? ” 
continued the Regent, bending his eyes upon him with a 
keen and strong expression of observation. 

“ That,” said the page, “ depends on the quality of those 
who speak against his honor whose bread I have long eaten. 
If they be my inferiors, I say they lie, and will maintain 
what 1 say with my baton ; if my equals, still I say th^y 
lie, and will do battle in the quarrel, if they list, with my 
sword ; if my superiors ” — he paused. 

“Proceed boldly,” said the Regent — “What if thy 
superiors said aught that nearly touched your master’s 
honor ? ” 

“ I would say,” replied Graeme, “ that he did ill to slander 
the absent, and that my master was a man who could ren- 
der an account of his actions to any one who should man- 
fully demand it of him to his face.” 

“ And it were manfully said,” replied the Regent — “ what 
thinkest thou, my Lord of Morton ? ” 

“ I think,” replied Morton, “ that if the young galliard 
resemble a certain ancient friend of ours, as much in the 
craft of his disposition as he does in eye and in brow, there 
may be a wide difference betwixt what he means and what 
he speaks.” 

“And whom meanest thou that he resembles so closely ? ” 
said Murray. 

“ Even the true and trusty Julian Avenel,” replied 
Morton. 

“ But this youth belongs to the Debatable Land,” said 
Murray. 

“ It may be so ; but Julian was an outlying striker of 
venison, and made many a far cast when he had a fair doe 
in chase.” 

“ Pshaw ! ” said the Regent, “ this is but idle talk — Here, 
thou Hyndman — thou curiosity,” calling to the usher, who 
now entered, — “conduct this youth to his companion — 
You will both,” he said to Graeme, “keep yourselves in 
readiness to travel on short notice.” — And then, motioning 
to him courteously to withdraw, he broke up the interview. 


i88 


THE ABBOT. 


CHAPTER NINETEENTH. 

It is and is not — ’tis the thing I sought for, 

Have kneel’ d for, pray’d for, risk’d my fame and life for. 
And yet it is not — no more than the shadow 
Upon the hard, cold, flat, and polish’d mirror. 

Is the warm, giaceful, rounded, living substance 
■Which it presents in form and lineament. 

Old Play. 

The usher, with gravity which ill concealed a jealous 
scowl, conducted Roland Graeme to a lower apartment, 
where he found his comrade the falconer. The man of 
office then briefly acquainted them that this would be 
their residence till his Grace’s farther orders, that they 
were to go to the pantry, to the buttery, to the cellar, and 
to the kitchen, at the usual hours, to receive the allowances 
becoming their station, — instructions which Adam Wood- 
cock’s old familiarity with the court made him perfectly un- 
derstand — “ For your beds,” he said, “ you must go to the 
hostelry of Saint Michael’s, in respect the palace is now full 
of the domestics of the greater nobles.” 

No sooner was the usher’s back turned than Adam ex- 
claimed, with all the glee of eager curiosity, “And now. 
Master Roland, the news — the news — come, unbutton thy 
pouch, and give us thy tidings — What says the Regent ? 
asks he for Adam Woodcock ? — and is all soldered up, or 
must the Abbot of Unreason strap for it ?” 

“All is well in that quarter,” said the page ; “and for 
the rest — But, hey-day, what! have you taken the chain 
and medal off from my bonnet?” 

“ And meet time it was, when yon usher, vinegar-faced 
rogue that he is, began to inquire what Popish trangam 
you were wearing— By the mass, the metal would have been 
confiscated for conscience’s sake, like your other rattle-trap 
yonder at Avenel, which Mistress Lilias bears about on her 
shoes in the guise of a pair of shoe-buckles — This comes 
of carrying Popish nicknackets about you.” 

“ The jade 1 ” exclaimed Roland Graeme, “has she melted 
down my rosary into buckles for her clumsy hoofs, which 
will set off such a garnish nearly as well as a cow’s might ? 
—But, hang her, let her keep them — many a dog’s trick 
have I played old Lilias, for want of having something 
better to do, and the buckles will serve for a remembrance. 


THE ABBOT. 


185 

Do you remember the verjuice I put into the comfits, when 
old Wingate and she were to breakfast together on Easter 
morning ? ” 

“ In troth do I, Master Roland — the major-domo’s mouth 
was as crooked as a hawk’s beak'for the whole morning 
afterward, and any other page in your room would have 
tasted the discipline of the porter’s lodge for it. But my 
Lady’s favor stood between your skin and many a jerking 
— Lord send you may be the better for her protection in 
such matters ! ” 

“ I am at least grateful for it, Adam ; and I am glad you 
put me in mind of it.” 

“^ell, but the news, my young master,” said Woodcock, 
*• spell me the tidings — what are we to fly at next ? — what 
did the Regent say to you ? ” 

“ Nothing that I am to repeat again,” said Roland 
Graeme, shaking his head. 

“ Why, hey-day,” said Adam, “ how prudent we are be- 
come all of a sudden ! You have advanced rarely in brief 
space. Master Roland. You have well-nigh had your head 
broken, and you have gained your gold chain, and you 
have made an enemy. Master Usher to wit, with his two 
legs like hawks’ perches, and you have had audience of 
the first man in the realm, and bear as much mystery in 
your brow, as if you had flown in the court-sky ever since 
you were hatched. I believe, in my soul, you would run 
with a piece of the egg-shell on your head like the cur- 
lews, which (I would we were after them again) we used to 
call whaups in the Halidome and its neighborhood. But 
sit thee down, boy ; Adam Woodcock was never the lad to 
seek to enter into forbidden secrets — sit thee down, and I 
will go and fetch the vivers — I know the butler and the 
pantler of old.” 

The good-natured falconer set forth upon his errand, 
busying himself about procuring their refreshment ; and, 
during his absence, Roland Graeme abandoned himself to 
the strange, complicated, and yet heart-stirring reflections, 
to which the events of the morning had given rise. Yes- 
terday he was of neither mark nor likelihood, a vagrant 
boy, the attendant on a relative of whose sane judgment 
he himself had not the highest opinion ; but now he had 
become, he knew not why, or wherefore, or to what extent, 
the custodier, as the Scottish phrase went, of some impor- 
tant state secret, in the safe keeping of which the Regent 
himself was concerned. It did not diminish from, but 


iQO 


THE ABBOT. 


rather added to, the interest of a situation so unexpected, 
that Roland himself did not perfectly understand wherein 
he stood committed by the state secrets, in wliich he had 
unwittingly become participator. On the contrary, he felt 
like one who looks on a romantic landscape, of which he 
sees the features for the first .time, and then obscured with 
mist and driving tempest. The imperfect glimpse which 
the eye catches of rocks, trees, and other objects around 
him, adds double dignity to these shrouded mountains and 
darkened abysses, of which the height, depth, and extent, 
are left to imagination. 

But mortals, especially at the well-appetized age which 
precedes twenty years, are seldom so much engaged ^ther 
by real or conjectural subjects of speculation, but that their 
earthly wants claim their hour of attention. And with 
many a smile did our hero, so the reader may term him if 
he will, hail the re-appearance of his friend Adam Wood- 
cock, bearing on one platter a tremendous portion of boiled 
beef, and on another a plentiful allowance of greens, or 
rather what the Scotch call lang-kale. A groom followed 
with bread, salt, and the other means of setting forth a 
meal ; and when they had both placed on the oaken table 
what they bore in their hands, the falconer observed that 
since he knew the court, it had got harder and harder 
every day to the poor gentlemen and yeomen retainers, 
but that now it was an absolute flaying of a flea for the 
hide and tallow. Such thronging to the wicket, and such 
churlish answers, and such bare beef-bones, such a shoul- 
dering at the buttery-hatch and cellarage, and naught to 
be gained beyond small insufficient single ale, or at best 
with a single straike of malt to counterbalance a double 
allowance of water — “By the mass, though, my young 
friend,” said he, while he saw the food disappearing fast 
under Roland’s active exertions, “ it is not so well to 
lament for former times as to take the advantage of the 
present, else we are like to lose on both sides.” 

So saying, Adam Woodcock drew his chair toward the 
table, unsheathed his knife (for every one carried that 
minister of festive distribution for himself), and imitated 
his young companion’s example, who for the moment had 
lost his anxiety for the future in the eager satisfaction of 
an appetite sharpened by youth and abstinence. 

In truth, they made, though the materials were suffi- 
ciently simple, a very respectable meal, at the expense of 
the royal allowance; and Adam Woodcock, notwithstand- 


THE ABBOT. 


191 


ing the deliberate censure which he had passed on the 
household beer of the palace, had taken the fourth deep 
draught of the black jack ere he remembered him that he 
had spoken in its dispraise. Flinging himself jollily and 
luxuriously back in an old danske elbow-chair, and looking 
with careless glee toward the page, extending at the same 
time his right leg, and stretching the other easily over it, 
he reminded his companion that he had not yet heard the 
ballad which he had made for the Abbot of Unreason’s 
revel. And accordingly he struck merrily up with 

“ The Pope, that pagan full of pride, 

Has blinded us full lang” 

Roland Graeme, who felt no great delight, as may be 
supposed, in the falconer’s satire, considering its subject, 
began to snatch up his mantle, and fling it around his 
shoulders, an action which instantly interrupted the ditty 
of Adam Woodcock. 

“ Where the vengeance are you going now,” he said, 
“thou restless boy?— Thou hast quicksilver in the veins 
of thee to a certainty, and canst no more abide any douce 
and sensible communing, than a hoodless hawk would 
keep perched on my wrist ! ” 

“ Why, Adam,” replied the page, “ if you must needs 
know, I am about to take a walk and look at this fair city. 
One may as well be still mewed up in the old castle of the 
lake, if one is to sit the live-long night between four walls, 
and hearken to old ballads.” 

“ It is a new ballad — the Lord help thee ! ” replied Adam, 
“And that one of the best that ever was matched with a 
rousing chorus.” 

“ Be it so,” said the page, “ I will hear it another day, 
when the rain is dashing against the windows, and there is 
neither steed stamping, nor spur jingling, nor feather wav- 
ing in the neighborhood to mar my marking it well. But 
even now I want to be in the world, and to look about me.” 

“ But the never a stride shall you go without me,” said 
the falconer, “ until the Regent shall take you whole and 
sound off my hand ; and so, if you will, we may go to the 
hostelrie of Saint Micliael’s, and there you will see com- 
pany enough, but through the casement, mark you me ; 
for as to rambling through the street to seek Seytons and 
Leslies, and having a dozen holes drilled in your new 
jacket with rapier and poniard, I will yield noway to it. 


192 


THE ABBOT. 


“ To the hostelrie of Saint Michael’s, then, with all my 
heart,” said the page ; and they left the palace accordingly, 
rendered to the sentinels at the gate, who had now taken 
their posts for the evening, a strict account of their names 
and business, were dismissed through a small wicket of the 
close-barred portal, and soon reached the inn or hostelrie 
of Saint Michael, which stood in a large court-yard, oif 
the main street, close under the descent of the Calton-hill. 
The place, wide, waste, and uncomfortable, resembled 
rather an Eastern caravansary, where men found shelter 
indeed, but were obliged to supply themselves with every^ 
thing else, than one of our modern inns ; 

Where not one comfort shall to those be lost, 

Who never ask, or never feel, the cost. 

But Still, to the inexperienced eye of Roland Grseme, the 
bustle and confusion of this place of public resort furnished 
excitement and amusement. In the large room into which 
they had rather found their own way than been ushered 
by mine host, travellers and natives of the city entered and 
departed, met and greeted, gamed or drank together, 
forming the strongest contrast to the stern and monoto- 
nous order and silence with which matters were conducted 
in the well-ordered household of the Knight of Avenel. Al- 
tercation of every kind, from brawling to jesting, was going 
on amongst the groups around them, and yet the noise and 
mingled voices seemed to disturb no one, and indeed to be 
noticed by no others than by those who composed the 
group to which the speaker belonged. 

The falconer passed through the apartment to a project- 
ing latticed window, which formed a sort of recess from 
the room itself ; and having here ensconced himself and his 
companion, he called for some refreshments: and a tap- 
ster, after he had shouted for the twentieth time, accom- 
modated him with the remains of a cold capon and a neat’s 
tongue, together with a pewter stoup of weak French vin- 
de-pays. “Fetch a stoup of brandy -wine, thou knave — 
We will be jolly to-night. Master Roland,” said he, when 
he saw himself thus accommodated, “and let care come 
to-morrow.” 

But Roland had eaten too lately to enjoy the good cheer ; 
and feeling his curiosity much sharper than his appetite, 
he made it his choice to look out of the lattice, which 
overhung a large yard, surrounded by the stables of the 


THE ABBOT. 


193 


hostelrie, and fed his eyes on the busy sight beneath, while 
Adam Woodcock, after he. had compared his companion to 
the “ Laird of Macfarlane’s geese, who liked their play 
better than their meat,” disposed of his time with the aid 
of cup and trencher, occasionally humming the burden of 
his birth-strangled ballad, and beating time to it with his 
fingers on the little round table. In this exercise he was 
frequently interrupted by the exclamations of his com- 
panion, as he saw something new in the yard beneath to 
attract and interest him. 

It was a busy scene, for the number of gentlemen and 
nobles who were now crowded into the city had filled all 
spare stables and places of public reception with their 
horses and military attendants. There were some score of 
yeomen, dressing their own or their masters’ horses in the 
yard, whistling, singing, laughing, and upbraiding each 
other, in a style of wit which the good order of Avenel 
Castle rendered strange to Roland Graeme’s ears. Others 
were busy repairing their own arms, or cleaning those of 
their masters. One fellow, having just bought a bundle 
of twenty spears, was sitting in a corner, employed in 
painting the white staves of the weapons with yellow and 
vermilion. Other lackeys led large stag-hounds, or wolf- 
dogs, of noble race, carefully muzzled to prevent accidents 
to passengers. All came and went, mixed together and 
separated, under the delighted eye of the page, whose im- 
agination had not even conceived a scene so gayly diversi- 
fied with the objects he had most pleasure in beholding ; 
so that he was perpetually breaking the quiet reverie of 
honest Woodcock, and the mental progress \vhich he was 
making in his ditty, by exclaiming, “ Look here, Adam — 
look at the bonny bay horse — Saint Anthony, what a gal- 
lant forehand he hath got ! — and see the goodly gray. Which 
yonder fellow in the frieze-jacket is dressing as awkwardly 
as if he had never touched aught but a cow — I would I 
were nigh him to teach him his trade ! — And lo you, Adam, 
the gay Milan armor that the yeoman is scouring, all steel 
and silver, like our Knight’s prime suit, of which old Win- 
gate makes such account — And see to yonder pretty wench, 
Adam, who comes tripping through them all with her 
milk-pail — I warrant me she has had a long walk from the 
loaning ; she has a stammel waistcoat, like your favorite 
Cicely Sunderland, Master Adam ! ” 

“ By my hood, lad,” answered tlic falconer, “ it is well 
for thee thou wert brought up where grace grew. Even 

13 


194 


THE ABBOT. 


in the Castle of Avenel thou wert a wild-blood enough, 
but hadst thou been nurtured here, within a flight-shot of 
the Court, thou hadst been the veriest crack-hemp of a 
page that ever wore feather in thy bonnet or steel by thy 
side ; truly, I wish it may end well with thee.” 

“ Nay, but leave thy senseless humming and drumming, 
old Adam, and come to the window ere thou hast drenched 
thy senses in the pint-pot there. See, here comes a merry 
minstrel with his crowd, and a wench with him that dances 
with bells at her ankles ; and see, the yeomen and pages 
leave their horses and the armor they were cleaning, and 
gather round, as is very natural, to hear the music. Come, 
old Adam, we will thither too.” 

“ You shall call me cutt if I go down,” said Adam ; “ you 
are near as good minstrelsy as the stroller can make, if you 
had but the grace to listen to it.” 

“ But the wench in the stammel waistcoat is stopping, 
too, Adam — by heaven, they arc going to dance! Frieze- 
jacket wants to dance with stammel waistcoat, but she is 
coy and recusant.” 

Then suddenly changing his tone of levity into one of 
deep interest and surprise, he exclaimed, “Queen of 
Heaven! what is it that I see!” and then remained silent. 

The sage Adam Woodcock, who was in a sort of languid 
degree amused with the page’s exclamations, even while 
he professed to despise them, became at length rather de- 
sirous to set his tongue once more a-going, that he might 
enjoy the superiority afforded by his own intimate famil- 
iarity with all the circumstances which excited in his young 
companion’s mind so much wonderment. 

“Well, then,” he said at last, “what is it you do see, 
Master Roland, that you have become mute all of a sudden ? ” 

Roland returned no answer. 

“ I say. Master Roland Graeme,” said the falconer, “ it 
is manners in my country for a man to speak when he is 
spoken to.” 

Roland Graeme remained silent. . 

“ The murrain is in the boy,” said Adam Woodcock, 
“ he has stared out his eyes, and talked his tongue to pieces, 
I think.” s , 

The falconer hastily drank off his can of wine, and came 
to Roland, who stood like a statue, with his eyes eagerly 
bent on the court-yard, though Adam Woodcock was un- 
able to detect among the joyous scenes which it exhibited 
aught that could deserve such devoted attention. 


THE ABBOT. 


195 


“ The lad is mazed I ” said the falconer to himself. 

But Roland Graeme had good reasons for his surprise, 
though they were not such as he could communicate to his 
companion. 

The touch of the old minstrel’s instrument, for he had 
already begun to play, had drawn in several auditors from 
the street, when one entered the gate of the yard, whose 
appearance exclusively arrested the attention of Roland 
Graeme. He was of his own age, or a good deal younger, 
and from his dress and bearing might be of the same rank 
and calling, having all the air of coxcombry and pretension, 
which accorded with a handsome, though slight and low 
figure, and an elegant dress, in part hid by a large purple 
cloak. As he entered, he cast a glance up toward the 
windows, and, to his extreme astonishment, under the pur- 
ple velvet bonnet and white feather, Roland recognized 
the features so deeply impressed on his memory, the 
bright and clustered tresses, the laughing full blue eyes, 
the well-formed eye-brows, the nose, with the slightest 
possible inclination to be aquiline, the ruby lip, of which 
an arch and half-suppressed smile seemed the habitual ex- 
pression — in short the form and face of Catherine Seyton ; 
in man’s attire, however, and mimicking, as it seemed, not 
unsuccessfully, the bearing of a youthful but forward page. 

“ Saint George and Saint Andrew ! ” exclaimed the 
amazed Roland Graeme to himself, “was there ever such 
an audacious quean !— she seems a little ashamed of her 
mummery too, for she holds the lap of her cloak to her 
face, and her color is heightened— but, Santa Maria, how 
she threads the throng, with as firm and bold a step as if 
she had never tied petticoat round her waist !— Holy saints ! 
she holds up her riding-rod as if she would lay it about 
some of their ears, that stand most in her w^ay— by the hand 
of my father ! she bears herself like the very model of 
pagehood. — Hey! what! sure she will not strike frieze- 
jacket in earnest ?” But he was not long left in doubt ; 
for the lout whom he had before repeatedly noticed, stand- 
ing in the w^ay of the bustling page, and maintaining his 
place with clownish obstinacy or stupidity, the advanced 
riding-rod was, without a moment’s hesitation, sharply ap- 
plied^o his shoulders, in a manner w’hich made him spring 
aside, rubbing the pfirt of the body which had received so 
unceremonious a hint that it w^as in the way of his betters. 
The party injured growded forth an oath or two of indig- 
nation, and Roland Graeme began to think of flying down- 


THE ABBOT. 


196 

stpJrs to the assistance of the translated Catherine ; but the 
laugh of the yard was against frieze-jacket, which indeed 
had, in those days, small chance of fair play in a quarrel 
with velvet and embroidery ; so that the fellow, who was a 
menial in the inn, slunk back to finish his task of dressing 
the bonny gray, laughed at by all, but most by the wench 
in the stammel waistcoat, his fellow-^^rvant, who, to crown 
his disgrace, had the cruelty to cast an applauding smile 
upon the author of the injury, while, with a freedom more 
like the milkmaid of the town than her of the plains, she 
accosted him with — “ Is there any one you want here, my 
pretty gentleman, that you seem in such haste ? ” 

“ I seek a sprig of a lad,” said the seeming gallant, 
“ with a sprig of holly in his cap, black hair and black 
eyes, green jacket, and the air of a country coxcomb — I 
have sought him through every close and alley in the 
Canongate, the fiend gore him ! ” 

“Why, God-a-mercy, Nun!” muttered Roland Graeme, 
much bewildered. 

“ I will inquire him presently out for your fair young 
worship,” said the wench of the inn. 

“Do,” said the gallant squire, “and if you bring me to 
him, you shall have a groat to-night, and a kiss on Sunday 
when you have on a cleaner kirtle.” 

“Why, God-a-mercy, Nun!” again muttered Roland, 
“ this is a note above E La.” 

In a moment after, the servant entered the room and 
ushered in the object of his surprise. 

While the disguised vestal looked with unabashed brow, 
and bold and rapid glance of her eye, through the various 
parties in the large old room, Roland Graeme, who felt an 
internal awkward sense of bashful confusion, which he 
deemed altogether unworthy of the bold and dashing char- 
acter to which he aspired, determined not to be browbeaten 
and put down by this singular female, but to meet her 
with a glance of recognition so sly, so penetrating, so ex- 
pressively humorous, as should show her at once he was 
in possession of her secret and master of her fate, and 
should compel her to humble herself toward him, at least 
into the look and manner of respectful and deprecating 
observ’-ance. 

This was extremely well planned ; but just as Roland 
had called up the knowing glance, the suppressed smile, 
the shrewd intelligent look, which was to insure his tri- 
umph, he encountered the bold, firm, and steady gaze of 


THE ABBOT. 


197 

his brother or sister-page, who, casting on him a falcon 
glance, and recognizing him at once as the object of his 
search, walked up with the most unconcerned look the 
most free and undaunted composure, and hailed him With 
lou. Sir Holly-top, 1 would speak with you.” 

The steady coolness and assurance with which these 
uttered, although the voice was the very voice 
he had heard at the old convent, and although the feat- 
ures more nearly resembled those of Catherine when seen 
close than when viewed from a distance, produced, never- 
tneless, such a confusion in Roland’s mind, that he be- 
came uncertain whether he was not still under a mistake 
beginning; the knowing shrewdness which 
should have animated his visage faded into a sheepish 
bashfulness, and the half-suppressed but most intellifrible 
smile, became the senseless giggle of one who laughs to 
cover his own disorder of ideas. 

“Do they understand a Scotch tongue in thy country. 
Holly-top?” said this marvellous specimen of metamor- 
phosis. “ I said I would speak with thee.” 

“What is your business with my comrade, my youno- 
chick of the game ? said Adam Woodcock, willino" to 
step in to his companion’s assistance, though totally^at a 
loss to account for the sudden disappearance of all Ro- 
land’s usual smartness and presence of mind. 

“Nothing to you, my old cock of the perch,” replied 
the galjant ; “go mind your hawk’s castings. I guess by 
your bag and your gauntlet that you are squire of the 
body to a sort of kites.” 

He laughed as he spoke, and the laugh reminded Ro- 
land so irresistibly of the hearty fit of risibility, in which 
Catherine had indulged at his expense when they first met 
in the old nunnery, that he could scarce help exclaiming, 
“Catherine Seyton, by Heavens !”— He checked the ex- 
clamation, however, and only said, “ I think, sir, we two 
are not totally strangers to each other.” 

“We must have met in our dreams then,” said the 
youth; “and my days are too busy to remember what I 
think on at nights.” 

“Or apparently to remember upon one day those whom 
you may have seen on the preceding eve,” said Roland 
Graeme. 

The youth in his turn cast on him a look of some sur- 
prise, as he replied, “ I know no more of what you mean 
than does the horse I ride on— if there be offence in your 


THE ABBOT. 


198 

words, you shall find me as ready to take it as any lad in 

Lothian.” , , . 1 

“ You know well,” said Roland, “ though it pleases you 
to use the language of a stranger, that with you I have no 

purpose to quarrel.” „ -j 

“ Let me do mine errand, then, and be rid of you, said 
the page. “ Step hither this way, out of that old leathern 

fist’s hearing.” , . u o 

They walked into the recess of the window, which Ro- 
land had left upon the youth’s entrance into the apart- 
ment. The messenger then turned his back on the com- 
pany, after casting a hasty and sharp glance around to see 
if they were observed. Roland did the same, and the 
page in the purple mantle thus addressed him, taking at 
the same time from under his cloak a short but beautifully 
wrought sword, with the hilt and ornaments upon the 
sheath of silver, massively -chased and over-gilded — “ I 
bring vou this weapon from a friend, who gives it you 
under the solemn condition, that you will not unsheathe 
it until you are commanded by your rightful Sovereign. 
For your warmth of temper is known, and the presump- 
tion with which you intrude yourself into the quarrels of 
others ; and, therefore, this is laid upon you as a penance 
by those who wish you well, and whose hand will influ- 
ence your destiny for good or for evil. This is what I was 
charged to tell you. So if you will give a fair word for a 
fair sword, and pledge your promise, with hand and glove, 
good and well ; and if not, I will carry back Caliburn to 
those who sent it.” 

“And may I not ask who these are?” said Roland 
Grgeme, admiring at the same time the beauty of the weap- 
on thus offered him. 

“ My commission in no way leads me to answer such a 
question,” said he of the purple mantle. 

“ But if I am offended,” said Roland, “ may I not draw 
to defend myself ?” 

“Not this weapon,” answered the sword-bearer; “but 
you have your own at command, and, besides, for Avhat 
do you wear your poniard ? ” 

“For no good,” said Adam Woodcock, who had now 
approached close to them, “ and that I can witness as well 
as any one.” 

“ Stand back, fellow,” said the messenger ; “ thou hast 
an intrusive curious face, that will come by a buffet if it is 
found where it has no concern.” 


THE ABBOT. 


199 


“A buffet, my young Master Malapert?” said Adam 
drawing back, however ; ‘‘ best keep down fist, or, by Our 
Lady, buffet will beget buffet ! ” 

“ Be patient, Adam Woodcock,” said Roland Grseme 
“and let me pray you, fair sir, since by such addition you 
choose for the present to be addressed, may I not barely 
unsheathe this fair weapon, in pure simplicity of desire to 
know whether so fair a hilt and scabbard are matched 
with a befitting blade ? ” 

“ By no manner of means,” said the messenger ; “at a 
word, you must take it under the promise that you never 
draw it until you receive the commands of your lawful 
sovereign, or you must leave it alone.” 

“ Under that condition, and coming from your friendly 
hand, I accept of the sword,” said Roland, taking it from 
his hand ; “ but credit me, that if we are to work together 
in any weighty emprise, as I am induced to believe, some 
confidence and openness on 'your part will be necessary 
to give the right impulse to my zeal— I press for no more 
at present, it is enough that you understand me.” 

“ I understand you ! ” said" the page, exhibiting the ap- 
pearance of unfeigned surprise in his turn — “ Renounce 
me if I do ! — here you stand jiggeting, and sniggling, and 
looking cunning, as if there were some mighty matter of 
intrigue and common understanding betwixt you and me, 
whom you never set your eyes on before ! ” 

“What!” said Roland Graeme, “will you deny that we 
have met before ? ” 

“Marry that I will, in any Christian court,” said the 
other page. 

“And will you also deny,” said Roland, “ that it was rec- 
ommended to us to study each other’s features well, that 
in whatever disguise the time might impose upon us, each 
should recognize in the other the secret agent of a mighty 
work ? Do not you remember, that Sister Magdalen and 
Dame Bridget ” 

The messenger here interrupted him, shrugging up his 
shoulders, with a look of compassion, “ Bridget and Mag- 
dalen ! why, this is madness and dreaming! Hark ye 
Master Holly-top, your wits are gone on w’ool-gathering ; 
comfort yourself with a caudle, thatch your brain-sick 
noddle with a woollen nightcap, and so God be with 
you.” 

As he concluded this polite parting address, Adam 
Woodcock, who was again seated by the table on which 


200 


THE ABBOT. 


stood the now empty can, said to him, “ Will you drink a 
cup, young man, in the way of courtesy, now you have 
done your errand, and listen to a good song ? and with- 
out waiting for an answer, he commenced his ditty— 

“ The Pope, that pagan full of pride, 

Hath blinded us full lang ” 

It is probable that the good wine had made some innova- 
tion in the falconer’s brain, otherwise he would have recol- 
lected the danger of introducing anything like political or 
polemical pleasantry into a public assemblage, at a time 
when men’s minds were in a state of great irritability. To 
do him justice, he perceived his error, and stopped short 
so soon as he saw that the word Pope had at once inter- 
rupted the separate conversations of the various parties 
which were assembled in the apartment ; and that many 
began to draw themselves up, bridle, look big, and pre- 
pare to take part in the impending brawl ; while others, 
more decent and cautious persons, hastily paid down their 
lawing, and prepared to leave the place ere bad should 
come to worse. 

And to worse it was soon likely to come ; for no sooner 
did Woodcock’s ditty reach the ear of the stranger page, 
than, uplifting his riding-rod, he exclaimed, “ He who 
speaks irreverently of the Holy Father of the church in 
my presence, is the cub of a heretic wolf-bitch, and I will 
switch him as I would a mongrel cur.” 

“ And I will break thy young pate,” said Adam, “ if 
thou darest to lift a finger to me.” And then, in defiance 
of the young Drawcansir’s threats, with a stout heart and 
, dauntless accent, he again uplifted the stave. 

“ The Pope, that pagan full of pride, 

Hath blinded ” 

But Adam was able to proceed no farther, being himself 
unfortunately blinded by a stroke of the impatient youth’s 
switch across his eyes. Enraged at once by the smart and 
the indignity, the falconer started up, and darkling as he 
was, for his eyes watered too fast to permit his seeing any- 
thing, he would soon have been at close grips Avith his in- 
solent adversary, had not Roland Graeme, contrary to his 
nature, played for once the prudent man and the peace- 
maker, and thrown himself betwixt them, imploring Wood- 
cock’s patience. “You know not,” he said, “with whom 


THE ABBOT. 


201 

you have to do. And thou,” addressing the messenger, 
who stood scornfully laughing at Adam’s rage, “ get thee 
gone, whoever thou art ; if thou be’st what I guess thee, 
thou well knowest there are earnest reasons why thou 
shouldst.” 

“Thou hast hit it right for once. Holly- top,” said the 
gallant, “ though I guess you drew your bow at a venture. 
Here, host, let this yeoman have a pottle of wine to wash 
the smart out of his eyes — and there is a French crown for 
him.” So saying, he threw the piece of money on the 
table, and left the apartment with a quick yet steady pace, 
looking firmly at right and left, as if to defy interruption ; and 
snapping his fingers at two or three respectable burghers, 
who, declaring it was a shame that 'any one should be suf- 
fered to rant and ruffle in defence of the Pope, were labor- 
ing to find the hilts of their swords, which had got for the 
present unhappily entangled in the folds of their cloaks. 
But, as the adv’^ersary was gone ere any of them had reached 
his weapon, they did not think it necessary to unsheathe 
cold iron, but merely observed to each other, “ This is 
more than masterful violence, to see a poor man stricken 
in the face just for singing a ballad against the whore of 
Babylon ! If the Pope’s champions are to be bangsters in 
our very change-houses, we shall soon have the old shave- 
lings back again.” 

“The provost should look to it,” said another, “and 
have some five or six armed with partisans, to come in 
upon the first whistle, to teach these gallants their lesson. 
For, look you, neighbor Lugleather, it is not for decent 
householders like ourselves to be brawling with the god- 
less grooms and pert pages of the nobles, that are bred 
up to little else save bloodshed and blasphemy.” 

“ For all that, neighbor,” said Lugleather, “ I would 
have curried that youngster as properly as ever I curried 
a lamb’s hide, had not the hilt of my bilbo been for the 
instant beyond my grasp ; and before I could turn my 
girdle, gone was my master ! ” 

“ Ay,” said the others, “ the devil go with him, and peace 
abide with us — I give my rede, neighbors, that we pay the 
lavving, and be stepping homeward, like brother and 
brother ; for old Saint Giles’s is tolling curfew, and the 
street grows dangerous at night.” 

With that the good burghers adjusted their cloaks, and 
prepared for their departure, while he that seemed the 
briskest of the three, laying his hand on his Andrea Fer- 


202 


THE ABBOT. 


rara, observed, “ that they that spoke in praise of the 
Pope on the Highgate of Edinburgh had best bring the 
sword of Saint Peter to defend them.” 

While the ill-humor excited by the insolence of the 
young aristocrat was thus evaporating in empty menace, 
Roland Graeme had to control the far more serious in- 
dignation of Adam Woodcock. “Why, man, it was but a 
switch across the mazzard — blow your nose, dry your 
eyes, and you will see all the better for it.” 

“ By this light, which I cannot see,” said Adam Wood- 
cock, “thou hast been a false friend to me, young man — 
neither taking up my rightful quarrel, nor letting me fight 
it out myself.” 

“Fyfor shame, Adam Woodcock,” replied the youth, 
determined. to turn the tables on him, and become in turn 
the counsellor of good order and peaceable demeanor — “ I 
say, fy for shame ! Alas, that you will speak thus ! Here 
are you sent with me to prevent my innocent youth getting 
into snares ” 

“ I wish your innocent youth were cut short with a hal- 
ter, with all my heart,” said Adam, who began to see which 
way the admonition tended. 

“And instead of setting before me,” continued Roland, 
“ an example of, patience and sobriety becoming the fal- 
coner of Sir Halbert Glendinning, you quaff me off I know 
not how many flagons of ale, besides a gallon of wine and 
a full measure of strong waters.” 

“It was but one small pottle,” said poor Adam, whom 
consciousness of his own indiscretion now reduced to a 
merely defensive warfare. 

“ It was enough to pottle you handsomely, however,” said 
the page. “And then, instead of going to bed to sleep off 
your liquor, must you sit singing your roistering songs 
about popes and pagans, till you have got your eyes almost 
switched out of your head ; and but for my interference, 
whom your drunken ingratitude accuses of deserting you, 
yon galliard \yould have cut your throat, for he was whip- 
ping out a whinger as broad as my hand and as sharp as 
a razor — And'these are lessons for an inexperienced 3’'outh ! 
Oh, Adam ! out upon you ! out upon you ! ” 

“ Marry, amen, and with all my heart,” said Adam ; “ out 
upon my folly for expecting anvtbing but impertinent rail- 
lery from a page like thee, that if he saw his father in a 
SCI ape would laugh at him instead of lending him aid.” 

“Nay, but I will lend you aid,” said the page, still laugh* 


THE ABBOT. 


203 


ing ; “ that is, I will lend thee aid to thy chamber, good 
Adam, where thou shalt sleep off wine and ale, ire and in- 
dignation, and awake the next morning with as much fair 
wit as nature has blessed thee withal. Only one thing I 
will warn thee, good Adam, that henceforth and forever 
when thou railest at me for being somev’hat hot at hand, 
and rather too prompt to out with poniard or so, thy ad- 
monition shall serve as a prologue to the memorable ad- 
venture of the switching of Saint Michael’s.” 

With such condoling expressions he got the crest-fallen 
falconer to his bed, and then retired to his own pallet, where 
it was some time ere he could fall asleep. If the messen- 
ger whom he had seen were really Catherine Seyton, what 
a masculine virago and termagant must she be ! and stored 
with what an inimitable command of insolence ai^ assur- 
ance ! The brass on her brow would furbish the front of 
twenty pages ; “ and 1 should know,” thought Roland, 
“what that amounts to — And yet, her features, her look, her 
light gait, her laughing eye, the art with which she dis- 
posed the mantle to show no more of her limbs than needs 
must be seen — I am glad she had at least that grace left — 
the voice, the smile — it must have been Catherine Seyton, or 
the devil in her likeness ! One thing is good, I have silenced 
the eternal predications of that ass, Adam Woodcock, who 
has set up for being a preacher and a governor over me 
so soon as he has left the hawks’ mew behind him.” 

And with this comfortable reflection, joined to the happy 
indifference which youth hath for the events of the mor- 
row, Roland Graeme fell fast asleep. 


CHAPTER TWENTIETH. 

Now have you reft me from my staff, my guide. 

Who taught my youth, as men teach untamed falcons, 

To use my strength discreetly — I am reft 
Of comrade and of counsel. 

Old Play. 

In the gray of the next morning’s dawn there was a loud 
knocking at the gate of the hostelry ; and those without, 
proclai tiling that they came in thp name of the Regent, 
were instantly admitted. A moment or two afterward 
Michael Wing-the-wind stood by the bedside of our trav- 
ellers. 


204 


THE ABBOT. 


“ Up ! up ! ” he said, “ there is no slumber where Murray 
hath work ado.” 

Both sleepers sprang up, and began to dress themselves. 

“You, old friend,” said Wing-the-wind to Adam Wood- 
cock, “ must to horse instantly, with this packet to the 
Monks of Kennaquhair ; and with this,” delivering them as 
he spoke, “ to the Knight of Avenel.” 

“As much as commanding the monks to annul their 
election, I’ll warrant me, of an Abbot,” quoth Adam ’ 
Woodcock, as he put the packets into his bag, “ and charg- 
ing my master to see it done — To hawk at one brother 
with another is less than fair play, methinks.” 

“ Fash not thy beard about it, old boy,” said Michael, 
“but betake thee to the saddle presently ; for if these or- 
ders are not obeyed there will be bare walls at the Kirk of 
Saint Mary’s, and it may be at the Castle of Avenel to 
boot ; for I heard my Lord of Morton loud with the Re- 
gent, and we are at a pass that we cannot stand with him 
anent trifles.” 

“ But,” said Adam, “ touching the Abbot of Unreason — 
what say they to that outbreak ? And they be shrewishly 
disposed, I were better pitch the packets to Satan, and take 
the other side of the Border for my bield.” 

“Oh, that was passed over as a jest, since there was little 
harm done. But, hark thee, Adam,” continued his com- 
rade, “ if there was a dozen vacant abbacies in your road, 
whether of jest or earnest, reason or unreason, draw thou 
never one of their mitres over thy brows — The time is 
not fitting, man ! besides, our Maiden longs to clip the 
neck of a fat churchman.” 

“ She shall never shear mine in that capacity,” said the 
falconer, while he knotted the kerchief in two or three 
double folds around his sunburnt bull-neck, calling out at 
the same time, “Master Roland, Master Roland, make 
haste ! we must back to^erch and mew, and thank Heaven 
more than our own wit, with our bones whole, and with- 
out a stab in the stomach.” 

“Nay, but,” said Wing-the-wind, “the page goes not 
back with you, the Regent has other employment for him.” 

“ Saints and sorrows ! ” exclaimed the falconer, “ Master 
Roland Graeme to remain here, and I to return to Avenel ! 
Why, it cannot be — the child cannot manage himself in 
this wide world without me, and I question if he would 
stoop to any other whistle than mine own ; there are times 
I myself can hardly bring him to my lure.” 


THE ABBOT. 


205 


It was at Roland’s tongue’s end to say something concern- 
ing the occasion they had for using mutually each other’s 
prudence, but the real anxiety which Adam evinced at 
parting with him took away his disposition to such ungra- 
cious raillery. The falconer did not altogether escape, 
however, for in turning his face toward the lattice his 
friend Michael caught a glimpse of it, and exclaimed, “I 
prithee, Adam Woodcock, what hast thou been doing with 
these eyes of thine ? They are swelled to the starting 
from the socket.” 

“ Naught in the world,” said he, after casting a deprecat- 
ing glance at Roland Graeme, “ but the effect of sleeping 
in this d d truckle without a pillow.” 

“Why, Adam Woodcock, thou must be grown strangely 
dainty,” said his old companion ; “ I have known thee 
sleep all night with no better pillow than a bush of ling, 
and start up with the sun, as gleg as a falcon ; and now 
thine eyes resemble ” ' 

“Tush, man, what signifies how mine eyes look now ?” 
said Adam ; “let us but roast a crab-apple, pour a bottle 
of ale on it, and bathe our throats withal, thou shalt see a 
change in me.” 

“And thou wilt be in heart to sing thy jolly ballad about 
the Pope,” said his comrade. 

“ Ay, that I will,” replied the falconer, “that is, when we 
have left this quiet town five miles behind us, if you will 
take your hobby and ride so far on my way.” 

“Nay, that I may not,” said Michael; “I can but stop 
to partake your morning draught, and see you fairly to 
horse — I will see that they saddle them and toast the crab 
for thee without loss of time.” 

During his absence the falconer took the page by the 
hand — “May I never hood hawk again,” said the good- 
natured fellow, “ if I am not as sorry to part with you as 
if you were a child of mine own, craving pardon for the 
freedom — I cannot tell what makes me love you so much, 
unless it be for the reason that I loved the vicious devil 
of a brown galloway-nag, whom my master the Knight 
called Satan, till Master Warden changed his name to Sey- 
ton ; for he said it was over boldness to call a beast after 
the King of Darkness ” 

“And,” said the page, “it was overboldness in him, I 
trow, to call a vicious brute aftef a noble family.” 

“Well,” proceeded Adam, “Seyton or Satan, I loved 
that nag over every horse in the stable. There was no 


2o6 


THE ABBOT. 


sleeping on his back-he was forever fidgeting, bolting 
rearLg biting, kicking and giving you work to do and 
maybe the measure of your back on the heather to the 
boot of it all. And I think I love you better than any lad 
in the castle for the self-same qualities.” 

“ Thanks, thanks, kind Adam. I regard bound 

to YOU for the good estimation in which you hold me. 

“ Nav interrupt me not,” said the falconer ; Satan was 
a good nag-But I say I think I shall call the two eyases 
after you, the one Roland, and the other Graeme ; and, 
while Adam Woodcock lives, be sure you have a friend 

Here is to thee, my dear son.” r i ^ 

Roland most heartily returned the grasp of the hand, 
and Woodcock, having taken a deep draught, continued 


his farewell speech. • i a 

“ There are three things I warn you against, Koland, 
now that you are to tread this weary world without my 
experience to assist vou. In the first place, never draw a 
dao-o-er on slight occasion— every man’s doublet is not so 
we'lf stuffed as a certain abbot’s that you wot of. Secondly, 
fly not at every pretty girl, like a merlin at a thrush— you 
will not always win a gold chain for your labor and, by 
the way, here I return to you your fanfarona keep it close, 
it is weighty, and may benefit you at a pinch moie ways 
than one. Thirdly, and to conclude, as our worthy preach- 
er says, beware of the pottle-pot — it has drenched the judg- 
ment of wiser men than you. I could bring some instances 
of it, but I daresay it needeth not ; for if you should forget 
your own mishaps, you will scarce fail to remember mine 
— And so farewell, my dear son.” 

Roland returned his good wishes, and failed not to send 
his humble duty to his kind Lady, charging the falconer, 
at the same time, to express his regret that he should have 
offended her, and his determination so to bear him in the 
world that she would not be ashamed of the generous pro- 
tection she had afforded him. 

The falconer embraced his young friend, mounted his 
stout, round-made trotting nag, which the serving-man, 
who had attended him, held ready at the door, and took 
the road to the southward. A sullen and heavy sound 
echoed from the horse’s feet, as if indicating the sorrow of 
the good-natured rider. Every hoof-tread seemed to tap 
upon Roland’s heart as he heard his comrade withdraw 
with so little of his usual alert activity, and felt that he was 
once more alone in the world. 


THE ABBOT. 


207 


He was roused from his reverie by Michael Wing-the- 
wind, who reminded him that it was necessary they should 
instantly return to the palace, as my Lord Regent went to 
the Sessions early in the morning. They went thither ac- 
cordingly, and Wing-the-wind, a favorite old domestic, who 
was admitted nearer to the Regent’s person and privacy 
than many whose posts were more ostensible, soon intro- 
duced Graeme into a small matted chamber, where he had 
an audience of the present, head of the troubled State of 
Scotland. The Earl of Murray was clad in a sad-colored 
morning-gown, with a cap and slippers of the same cloth, 
but, even in this easy deshabille, held his sheathed rapier 
in his hand, a precaution which he adopted when receiving 
strangers, rather in compliance with the earnest remon- 
strances of his friends and partisans than from any personal 
apprehensions of his own. He answered with a silent nod 
the respectful obeisance of the page, and took one or two 
turns through the small apartment in silence, fixing his 
keen eye on Roland, as if he wished to penetrate into his 
very soul. At length he broke silence. 

“ Your name is, I think, Julian Graeme ? ” 

“ Roland Graeme, my lord, not Julian,” replied the page. 

“ Right — I was misfed by some trick of my memory — 
Roland Graeme, from the Debatable Land. Roland, thou 
knowest the duties which belong to a lady’s service ? ” 

“I should know them, my lord,” replied Roland, “hav- 
ing been bred so near the person of my Lady of Ayenel ; 
but 1 trust never more to practise them, as the Knight 
hath promised ” 

“ Be silent, young man,” said the Regent ; “ I am to 
speak, and you to hear and obey. It is necessary that, for 
some space at least, you shall again enter into the service 
of a lady, who, in rank, hath no equal in Scotland ; and 
this service accomplished, I give thee my word as Knight 
and Prince, that it shall open to you a course of ambition, 
such as may well gratify the aspiring wishes of one whom 
circumstances entitle to entertain much higher views than 
thou. I will take thee into my household, and near to my 
person, or, at your own choice, I will give you the com- 
mand of a foot-company — either is a preferment which the 
proudest laird in the land might be glad to ensure for a 
second son.” 

“ May I presume to ask, my lord,” said Roland, observ- 
ing the Earl paused for a reply, “ to^ whom my poor ser- 
vices are in the first place destined ?” 


2o8 


thp: abbot. 


“ You will be told hereafter,” said the Regent ; and then, 
as if overcoming some internal reluctance to speak farthei 
himself, he added, “ or why should I not myself tell you 
that you are about to enter into the service of a most illus- 
trious— most unhappy lady— into the service of Mary of 
Scotland.” 

“ Of the Queen, my lord ? ” said the page, unable to re- 
press his surprise. 

“ Of her who was the Queen ! ” said Murray, with a sin- 
gular mixture of displeasure and embarrassment in his 
tone of voice. “ You must be aware, young man, that her 
son reigns in her stead.” 

He sighed from an emotion, partly natural, perhaps, and 
partly assumed. 

“And am I to attend upon her Grace in her place of 
imprisonment, my lord ? ” again demanded the page, with 
a straightforward and hardy simplicity, which somewhat 
disconcerted the sage and powerful statesman. 

“ She is not imprisoned,” answered Murray, angrily ; 
“ God forbid she should — she is only sequestrated from 
state affairs, and from the business of the public, until the 
world be so effectually settled that she may enjoy her 
natural and uncontrolled freedom without her royal dispo- 
sition being exposed to the practices of wicked and design- 
ing men. "it is for this purpose,” he added, “that while 
she is to be furnished, as right is, with such attendance as 
may befit her present secluded state, it becomes necessary 
that those placed around her are persons on whose pru- 
dence I can have reliance. You see, therefore, you are at 
once called on to discharge an office most honorable in 
itself, and so to discharge it that you may make a friend 
of the Regent of Scotland. Thou art, I have been told, a 
singularly apprehensive youth ; and I perceive by thy look 
that thou dost already understand what I would say on 
this matter. In this schedule your particular points of 
duty are set down at length — but the sum required of you 
is fidelity — I mean fidelity to myself and to the state. You 
are, therefore, to watch every attempt which is made, or 
inclination displayed, to open any communication with any 
of the lords who have become banders in the west — with 
Hamilton, Seyton, with Fleming, or the like. It is true that 
my gracious sister, reflecting upon the ill chances that have 
happed to the state of this poor kingdom, from evil coun- 
sellors who have abused her royal nature in lime past, hath 
determined to sequestrate herself from state affairs in 


THE ABBOT 


2cg 

future. But it is our duty, as acting for and in the name 
of our infant nephew, to guard against the evils which may 
arise from any mutation or vacillation in her royal resolu- 
tions. Wherefore, it will be thy duty to watch, and report 
to our lady mother, whose guest our sister is for the pres- 
ent, whatever may infer a disposition to withdraw her 
person from the place of security in which she is lodged, 
or to open communication with those without. If, how- 
ever, your observation should detect anything of weight, 
and which may exceed mere suspicion, fail not to send 
notice by an especial messenger to me directly, and this 
ring shall be thy warrant to order horse and man on such 
service. — And now begone. If there be half the wit in thy 
head that there is apprehension in thy look, thou fully 
comprehendest all that I would say — Serve me faithfully, 
and sure as I am belted earl, thy reward shall be great.” 

Roland Graeme made an obeisance, and was about to 
depart. 

The Earl signed to him to remain. “ I have trusted thee 
deeply,” he said, “young man, for thou art the only one 
of her suite who has been sent to her by my own recom- 
mendation. Her gentlewomen are of her own nomination 
— it were too hard to have barred her that privilege, 
though some there were who reckoned it inconsistent with 
sure policy. Thou art young and handsome. Mingle in 
their follies, and see they cover not deeper designs under 
the appearance of female levity — if they do mine, do thou 
countermine. For the rest, bear all decorum and respect 
to the person of thy mistress — she is a princess, though a 
most unhappy one, and hath been a queen ! though now, 
alas ! no longer such. Pay, therefore, to her all honor and 
respect consistent with thy fidelity to the King and me — 
and now, farewell. — Yet stay — you travel with Lord Linde- 
say, a man of the old world, rough and honest, though un- 
taught ; see that thou offend him not, for he is not patient 
of raillery, and thou, I have heard, art a crack-halter.” 
This he said with a smile, then added, “ I could have 
wdshed the Lord Lindesay’s mission had been entrusted to 
some other and more gentle noble.” 

“ And wherefore should you wish that, my lord! ’’said 
Morton, who even then entered the apartment ; “ the 
council have decided for the best — we have had but too 
many proofs of this lady’s stubbornness of mind, and the 
oak that resists the sharp steel axe must be riven with the 
rugged iron wedge. — And this is to be her page ? — My 
14 


210 


THE ABBOT. 


Lord Regent hath doubtless instructed you, young rran, 
liow you shall guide yourself in these matters ; I will add 
but a little hint on my part. You are going to a castle of 
a Douglas, where treachery never thrives — the first moment 
of suspicion will be the last of your life. My kinsman, 
William Douglas, understands no raillery, and if he once 
have cause to think you false, you will waver in the wind 
from the castle battlements ere the sunset upon his anger. 
— And is the lady to have an almoner withal ? ” 

“ Occasionally, Douglas,” said the Regent ; “ it were 
hard to deny the spiritual consolation which she thinks 
essential to lier salvation.” 

“You are ever too soft-hearted, my lord — What ! a false 
priest to communicate her lamentations, not only to our 
unfriends in Scotland, but to the Guises, to Rome, to 
Spain, and I know not where !” 

“Fear not,” said the Regent, “we will take such order 
that no treachery shall happen.” 

“ Look to it then,” said Morton ; “ you know my mind 
respecting the wench you have consented she shall receive 
as a waiting- woman — one of a family, vrhich, of all others, 
has ever been devoted to her, and inimical to us. Had we 
not^been wary, she would have been purveyed of a page as 
much to her purpose as her waiting-damsel. I hear a 
rumor that an old mad Romish pilgrimer, who passes for 
at least half a saint among them, was employed to find a 
fit subject.” 

“We have escaped that danger at least,” said Murray, 
“ and converted it into a point of advantage, by sending 
this boy of Glendinning’s — and for her waiting-damsel, 
you eannot grudge her one poor maiden instead of her 
four noble Marys and all their silken train ?” 

“I care not so much for the waiting-maiden,” said Mor- 
ton, “but I cannot brook the almoner — I think priests of 
all persuasions are much like each other — Here is John 
Knox, who made such a noble puller-down, is ambitious of 
becoming a setter-up, and a founder of schools and col- 
leges out of the Abbey lands, and bishops’ rents, and other 
spoils of Rome, which the nobility of Scotland have won 
with their sword and bow, and with which he would endow 
new hives to sing the old drone.” 

“John is a man of God,” said the Regent, “and his 
scheme is a devout imagination.” 

The sedate smile with which this was spoken left it im- 
possible to conjecture whether the words were meant in 


THE ABBOT. 


2Il 


approbation or in derision of the plan of the Scottish Re- 
former. Turning then to Roland Graeme, as if he thought 
he had been long enough a witness of this conversation, he 
bade him get him presently to horse, since my Lord of 
Lindesay was already mounted. The page made his rev- 
erence, and left the apartment. 

Guided by Michael Wing-the-wind, he found his horse 
ready saddled and prepared for the journey in front of 
the palace porch, where hovered about a score of men- 
at-arms, whose leader showed no small symptoms of surly 
impatience. 

“Is this the jackanape page for whom we have waited 
thus long?” said he to Wing-the-wind. “And my Lord 
Ruthven will reach the castle long before us.” 

Michael assented, and added, that the boy had been de- 
tained by the Regent to receive some parting instructions. 
The leader made an inarticulate sound in his throat, ex- 
pressive of sullen acquiescence, and calling to one of his 
domestic attendants, “ Edward,” said he, “take the gallant 
into your charge, and let him speak with no one else.” 

He then addressed, by the title of Sir Robert, an elderly 
and respectable-looking gentleman, the only one of the 
party who seemed above the rank of a retainer or domes- 
tic, and observed that they must get to horse with all speed. 

During this discourse, and while they were riding slowly 
along the street of the suburb, Roland had time to examine 
more accurately the looks and figure of the Baron who was 
at their head. 

Lord Lindesay of the Byres was rather touched than 
stricken with years. His upright stature and strong limbs 
still showed him fully equal to all the exertio'ns and 
fatigues of war. His thick eyebrows, now partially griz- 
zled, lowered over large eyes full of dark fire, which 
seemed yet darker from the uncommon depth at which 
they were set in his head. His features, naturally strong 
and harsh, had their sternness exaggerated by one or two 
scars received in battle. These features, naturally calcu- 
lated to express the harder passions, were shaded by an 
open steel cap, with a projecting front, but having no visor, 
over the gorget of which fell the black and grizzled beard 
of the grim old Baron, and totally hid the lower part of his 
face. The rest of his dress was a loose buff-coat, which 
had once been lined with silk and adorned with embroidery, 
but which seemed much stained with travel, and damaged 
with cuts, received probably in battle. It covered a corse- 


212 


THE ABBOT. 


let, which had once been of polished steel, fairly gilded, 
but was now somewhat injured with rust. h. sword of an- 
tique make and uncommon size, framed to be wielded with 
both hands, a kind of weapon which was then beginning to 
go out of use, hung from his neck in a baldric, and was so 
disposed as to traverse his whole person, the huge hilt ap- 
pearing over his left shoulder, and the point reaching well- 
nigh to the right heel, and jarring against his spur as he 
walked. This unwieldy weapon could only be unsheathed 
by pulling the handle over the left shoulder — for no human 
arm was long enough to draw it in the usual manner. The 
whole equipment was that of a rude warrior, negligent of 
his exterior even to misanthropical sullenness ; and the 
short, harsh, haughty tone, which he used toward his at- 
tendants, belonged to the same unpolished character. 

The personage who rode with Lord Lindesay, at the 
head of the party, was an absolute contrast to him in man- 
ner, form and features. His thin and silky hair was al- 
ready white, though he seemed not above forty-five or fifty 
years old. His tone of voice was soft and insinuating — his 
form thin, spare, and bent by an habitual stoop — his pale 
cheek was expressive of shrewdness and intelligence — his 
eye was quick though placid, and his whole demeanorTnild 
and conciliatory. He rode an ambling nag, such as were 
used by ladies, clergymen, or others of peaceful professions 
— wore a riding-habit of black velvet, with a cap and feath- 
er of the same hue, fastened up by a golden medal — and 
for show, and as a mark of rank rather than for use, carried 
a walking-sword (as the short light rapiers were called), 
without any other arms, offensive or defensive. 

The party had now quitted the town, and proceeded, at 
a steady trot, toward the west. As they prosecuted their 
journey, Roland Graeme would gladly have learned some- 
thing of its purpose and tendency, but the countenance of 
, the personage next to whom he had been placed in the 
train discouraged all approach to familiarity. The Baron 
himself did not look more grim and inaccessible than his 
feudal retainer, whose grisly beard fell over his mouth like 
the portcullis before the gate of a castle, as if for the 
purpose of preventing the escape of any word of which 
absolute necessity did not demand the utterance. The 
rest of the train seemed under the same taciturn influence, 
and journeyed on without a word being exchanged amongst 
them — more like a troop of Carthusian friars than a party 
oi military retainers. Roland Gramme ' was 'surprised at 


the abbot. 


213 

this extremity of discipline ; for even in the household of 
the Knight of Avenel, though somewhat distinguished for 
the accuracy with which decorum was enforced, a iournev 
was a period of license, during which jest and sono- and 
everything within the limits of becoming mirth and p,as- 
hme, were freely permitted. This unusual silence was 
however so far acceptable, that it gave him time to bring 
any shadow of judgment which he possessed to council on 
his own situation and prospects, which would have appeared 
to any reasonable person in the liighest degree dangerous 
and perplexing. 

It was quite evident that he had, through various cir- 
cumstances not under liis own control, formed contra- 
dictory connections with both the contending factions, by 
whose strife the kingdom was distracted, without being 
properly an adherent of either. It seemed also clear, that 
the same situation in the household of the deposed Queen 
to which he was now promoted by the influence of the 
Regent, had been destined to him by his enthusiastic 
giandmother, Magdalen Graeme; for on this subject the 
words which Morton had dropped had been a ray of lio-ht ; 
yet it was no less clear that these two persons, the one^he 
declared enemy, the other the enthusiastic votary, of the 
Catholic religion— the one at the head of the King’s new 
government, the other, who regarded that government as 
a criminal usurpation— must have required and expected 
very different services from the individual whom they had 
thus united in recommending. It required very little re- 
flection to foresee that these contradictory claims on his 
services might speedily place him in a situation where his 
honor as well as his life might be endangered. But it was 
not in Roland Graeme’s nature to anticipate evil before it 
came, or to prepare to combat difficulties before they 
arrived. “I will see this beautiful and unfortunate Mary 
Stewart,” said he, “of whom we have heard so much, and 
then there will be time enough to determine whether I 
will be kingsman or queensman. None of them can say I 
have given word or promise to either of their factions ; for 
they have led me up and down like a blind Billy, without 
giving me any light into what I was to do. But it was 
lucky that grim Douglas came into the Regent’s closet 
this morning, otherwise I had never got free of him with- 
out plighting my troth to do all the Earl would have me, 
which seemed, after all, but foul play to the poor im- 
prisoned lad}*, to place her page as an espial on her.” 


214 


THE abbot. 


Skipping thus lightly over a matter of such consequence, 
the thoughts of the harebrained boy went a wool-gathering 
after more agreeable topics. Now he admired the Gothic 
tow^ers of Barnbougle, rising from the sea-beaten rock, and 
overlooking one of the most glorious landscapes in Scot- 
land — and now he began to consider what notable sport 
for the hounds and the hawks must be afforded by the 
variegated ground over which they travelled — and now he 
compared the steady and dull trot at which they were then 
prosecuting their journey, with the delight of sweeping 
over hill and dale in pursuit of his favorite sports. As, 
under the influence of these joyous recollections, he gave 
his horse the spur, and made him execute a gambade, he 
instantly incurred the censure of his grave neighbor, who 
hinted to him to keep the pace, and move quietly and in 
order, unless he wished such notice to be taken of his 
eccentric movements as was likely to be very displeasing 
to him. 

The rebuke and the restraint under which the youth 
now^ found himself, brought back to his recollection his 
late good-humored and accommodating associate and guide, 
Adam Woodcock; and from that topic his imagination 
made a short flight to Avcnel Castle, to the quiet and un- 
confined life of its inhabitants, the goodness of his early 
protectress, not forgetting the denizens of its stables, ken- 
nels and hawk-mews. In a brief space all these subjects 
of meditation gave way to the resemblance of that riddle 
of \vomankind, Catherine Seyton, who appeared before the 
eye of his mind— now in her female form, now in her male 
attire — now in both at once — like some strange dream, 
which presents to us the same individual under two differ- 
ent characters at the same instant. Her ‘mysterious pres- 
ent also recurred to his recollection— the sword which he 
now^ wore at his side, and which he was not to draw save 
by command of his legitimate Sovereign! But the key of 
this mystery he judged he was likely to find in the issue 
of his present journey. 

With such thoughts passing through his mind, Roland 
Graeme accompanied the party of Lord Lindesay to the 
Queen’s-Ferry, which they passed in vessels that lay in 
readiness for them. They encountered no adventure wliat- 
ever in their passage, excepting one horse being lam.ed in 
getting into the boat, an accident very common on such 
occasions, until a few years ago, when the ferry was com.- 
pjetely regulated. What was more peculiarly character- 


I'lrE ABBOT. 


215 


istic of the olden age, was the discharge of. a ciilverin at 
• the party from the battlements of the old castle of Rosythe 
on the north side of the Ferry, the lord of which happened 
to have some public or private quarrel with the Lord Linde- 
say, and took this mode of expressing his resentment. 
The insult, however, as it was harmless, remained un- 
noticed and unavenged, nor did anything else occur worth 
notice until the band had come where Lochleven spread 
its magnificent sheet of waters to the beams of a bright 
summer’s sun. 

The ancient castle, which occupies an island nearly in 
the centre of the lake, recalled to the page that of Avenel, 
in which he had been nurtured. But the lake was much 
larger, and adorned with several islets besides that on 
which the fortress was situated ; and, instead of being em- 
bosonaed in hills, like that of Avenel, had upon the south- 
ern side only a splendid mountainous screen, being the 
descent of one of the Lomond hills, and on the other was 
surrounded by the extensive and fertile plain of Kinross. 
Roland Graeme looked with some degree of dismay on the 
water-girdled fortress, which then, as now, consisted only 
of one large donjon keep, surrounded with a court-yard, . 
with two round flanking-towers at the angles, which con- 
tained within its circuit some other buildings of inferior 
importance. A few old trees, clustered together near the 
castle, gave some relief to the air of desolate seclusion ; 
but yet the page, while he gazed upon a building so se- 
questrated, could not but feel for the situation of a captive 
Princess doomed to dwell there, as well as for his own. 
“I must have been born,” he thought, “under the star 
that presides over ladies and lakes of water, for I cannot 
by any means escape from the service of the one, or from 
dwelling in the other. But if theyallow me not the fair 
freedom of my sport and exercise, they shall find it as 
hard to confine a wild drake as a youth who can swim 
like one.” 

The band had now reached the edge of the water, and 
one of the party advancing displayed Lord Lindesay’s 
pennon, waving it repeatedly to and fro, while that Baron 
himself blew a clamorous blast on his bugle. A banner 
was presently displayed from the roof of the castle in 
reply to these signals, and one or two figures were seen 
busied as if unmooring a boat which lay close to the 
islet. 

“ It will be some time ere they can reach us with 


2i6 


77/A’ ABBOT. 


the boat,” said the companion of the Lord Lindesay ; 
“should we not do well to proceed to the town, andar-. 
ray ourselves in some better order, ere we appear be- 
fore ” 

“You may do as you list, Sir Robert,” replied Lindesav, 
“I have neither time nor temper to waste on such vani- 
ties. She has cost me many a hard ride, and must not now 
take offence at the threadbare cloak and soiled doublet 
that I am arrayed in. It is the livery to which she has 
brought all Scotland.” 

“Do not speak so harshly,” said Sir Robert; “if she 
hath done wrong, she hath dearly abied it ; and in losing 
all real power, one would not deprive her of the little ex- 
ternal homage due at once to a lady and a princess.” 

“I say to you once more. Sir Robert Melville,” re- 
plied Lindesay, “do as you will — lor me, I am now too 
old to dink myself as a gallant to grace the bower of 
dames.” 


“The bower of dames, my lord!” said Melville, looking 
at the rude old tower — “ is it yon dark and grated castle, 
the prison of a captive Queen, to which you give so gay 
a name ?” 

“Name it as you list,” replied Lindesay; “had the 
Regent desired to send an envoy capable to speak to a 
captive Queen, there are many gallants in his court who 
would have courted the occasion to make speeches out of 
Amadis of Gaul, or the Mirror of Knighthood. But when 
he sent blunt old Lindesay, he knew he would speak to a 
misguided woman, as her former misdoings and her present 
state rendered necessary. I sought not this employment 
—It has been thrust upon me ; and I will not cumber my- 
self with more form in the discharge of it than needs must 
be tacked to such an occupation.” 

So saying. Lord Lindesay threw himself from horseback, 
and wrapping his riding-cloak around him, lay down at 
lazy length upon the sward, to await the arrival of the boat, 
which was now seen rowing from the castle toward the 
shore. Sir Robert Melville, who had also dismounted, 
walked at short turns to and fro upon the bank, his arms 
crossed on his breast, often looking to the castle, and dis- 
playing in discountenance a mixture of sorrow and anx- 
iety. The rest of the party sate like statues on horseback, 
without moving so much as the points of their lances, 
which they held upright in the air. 

As soon as the boat approached a rude quay or landing- 


THE AEB07\ 


217 


place, near to which they had stationed themselves, Lord 
Lindesay started up from his recumbent posture, and 
asked the person who steered why h^ had not brought a 
larger boat with him to transport his retinue, 

“ So please you,” replied the boatman, “ because it is the 
order of our lady that we bring not to the castle more than 
four persons.” 

“Thy lady is a wise woman,” said Lindesay, “to suspect 
me of treachery! — Or, had I intended it, what was to hin- 
der us from throwing you and your comrades into the lake 
and filling the boat with my own fellows ? ” 

The steersman, on hearing this, made a hasty signal to 
his men to back their oars and hold ofif from the shore 
which they were approaching. 

“Why, thou ass,” said Lindesay, “thou didst not think 
that I meant thy fool’s head serious harm ? Hark thee, 
friend— with fewer than three servants I will go no whither 
— Sir Robert Melville will require at least the attendance 
of one domestic ; and it will be at your peril and your 
lady’s to refuse us admission, come hither as we are on 
matters of great national concern.” 

The steersman answered with firmness, but with great 
civility of expression, that his orders were positive to 
bring no^more than four into the island, but he offered to 
row back to obtain a revisal of his orders. 

“Do so, my friends,” said Sir Robert Melville, after he 
had in vain endeavored to persuade his stubborn compan- 
ion to consent to a temporary abatement of his train, “ row 
back to the castle, sith it will be no better, and obtain thy 
lady’s orders to transport the Lord Lindesay, myself, and 
our retinue hither.” 

“And hearken,” said Lord Lindesay, “take with you 
this page, who comes as an attendant on your lady’s guest 
— Dismount, sirrah,” said he, addressing Roland, ‘^and em- 
bark with them in that boat.” 

“And what is to become of my horse?” said Gra3me ; 
“I am answerable for him to my master.” 

“ I will relieve you of the charge,” sai(t Lindesay ; “thou 
wilt have little enough to do with horse, saddle, or bridle, 
for ten years to come — Thou mayest take the halter an 
thou wilt — it may stand thee in a turn.” 

“ If I thought so,” said Roland — but he was interrupted 
by Sir Robert Melville, who said to him good-humoredly, 
“ Dispute it not, young friend — resistance can do no good, 
but may well run thee into danger.” 


2i8 


THE ABBOT. 


Roland Graeme felt the justice of what he said, and, 
tliough neither delighted with the matter or manner of 
Lindesay’s address, deemed it best to submit to necessity, 
and to embark without farther remonstrance. The men 
plied their oars. The quay, with the party of horse sta- 
tioned near it, receded from the page’s eyes — the castle and 
the islet seemed to draw near in the same proportion, and 
in a brief space he landed under the shadow of a huge old 
tree which overhung the landing-place. The steersman 
and Graeme leapt ashore ; the boatmen remained lying on 
their oars ready for farther service. 


CHAPTER TWENTY-FIRST. 


Could valor aught avail or people’s love, 

France had not wept Navarre’s brave Henry slain ; 

If wit or beauty could compassion move, 

The Rose of Scotland had not wept in vain. 

Elegy in a Royal Mausoleum. — Lewis. 

At the gate of the courtyard of Lochleven appeared the 
stately form of the Lady" of Lochleven, a female whose 
early charms had captivated James V., by whom, she be- 
came mother of the celebrated Regent Murray. As she 
was of noble birth (being a daughter of the house of Mar) 
and of great beauty, her intimacy with James did not 
prevent her being afterward sought in honorable marriage 
by many gallants of the time, among whom she had pre- 
ferred Sir William Douglas of I-,ochleven. But well Has it 
been said, 

“Our pleasant vices, 

Are made the whips to scourge us.’’ — 

The station which the Lady of Lochleven now held as the 
wife of a man of liigh rank and interest, and the mother of 
a lawful family, did not prevent her nourishing a painful 
sense of degradation, even while she was proud of the 
talents, the power, and the station of her son, now 
prime ruler of the state, but still a pledge of her illicit 
intercourse. “ Had James done to her,” she said, in her 
secret heart, “ the justice he owed her, she had seen in 
ner son, as a source of unmixed delight and of unchas- 
tened pride, the lawful monarch of Scotland, and one of 
the ablest who ever swayed the sceptre. The house 


THE abbot: 


219 


oi Mar, not inferior in antiquity or grandeur to that of 
Drummond, would then have also boasted a Queen among 
its daughters, and escaped the stain attached to female 
frailty, even when it has a royal lover for its apology.” 
While such feelings preyed on a bosom naturally proud 
and severe, they had a corresponding effect on her coun- 
tenance, where, Avith the remains of great beauty, were 
mingled traits indicative of inward discontent and peevish 
melancholy. It perhaps contributed to increase this habit- 
ual temperament, that the Lady Lochleven had adopted 
uncommonly rigid and severe views of religion, imitating 
in her ideas of reformed faith the very worst errors of tlie 
Catholics, in limiting the benefit of the gospel to those 
who profess their own speculative tenets. 

■ In every respect, the unfortunate Queen Mary, now the 
compulsory guest, or rather prisoner, of this sullen lady, 
was obnoxious to her hostess. Lady Lochleven disliked 
her as the daughter of Mary of Guise, the legal possessor 
of those rights over James’s heart and hand, of which she 
conceived herself to have been injuriously deprived ; and 
yet more so as the professor of a religion which she de- 
tested worse than Paganism. 

Such was the dame, who, with stately mien, and sharp 
yet handsome features, shrouded by her black velvet coif, 
interrogated the domestic who steered her barge to the 
shore, what had become of Lindesay and Sir Robert Mel- 
ville. The man related what had passed, and she smiled 
scornfully as she replied, ‘‘Fools must be flattered, not 
foughten with. — Row back — make thy excuse as thou canst 
— say Lord Ruthven hath already reached this castle, and 
that he is impatient for Lord Lindesay’s presence. Away 
with thee, Randal — yet stay — what galopin is that thou 
hast brought hither? ” 

“ So please you, my lady, he is the page who is to wait 
upon ” 

“Ay, the new male minion,” said the Lady Lochleven ; 
“ the female attendant arrived yesterday. I shall haA*e a 
well-ordered house with this lady and her retinue ; but I 
trust they will soon find some others to undertake such a 
charge. Begone, Randal — and you ” (to Roland Graeme) 
“ follow me to the garden.” 

She led the way with a sIoav and stately step to the small 
garden, which, enclosed by a stone wall ornamented with 
statues, and an artificial fountain in the centre, extended 
its dull parterres on the side of the courtyard, with which 


220 


THE ABBOT. 


it communicated by a low and arched portal Within the 
narrow circuit of its formal and limited walks, Mary 
Stewart was now learning to perform the weary part of a 
prisoner, which, with little interval, she was doomed to 
sustain during the remainder of her life. She was followed 
in her slow and melancholy exercise by two female attend- 
ants ; but in the first glance which Roland Graeme be- 
stowed upon one so illustrious by birth, so distinguished 
by her beauty, accomplishments, and misfortunes, he was 
sensible of the presence of no other than the unhappy 
Queen of Scotland. 

Her face, her form, have been so deeply impressed upon 
the imagination, that even at the distance of nearly three 
centuries, it is unnecessary to remind the most ignorant 
and uninformed reader of the striking traits which charac- 
terize that remarkable countenance, which seems at once 
to combine our ideas of the majestic, the pleasing, and the 
brilliant, leaving us to doubt whether they express most 
happily the queen, the beauty, or the accomplished woman. 
Who is there, that, at the very mention of Mary Stewart’s 
name, has not her countenance before him, familiar as that 
of the mistress of his youth, or the favorite daughter of his 
advanced age ? Even those who feel themselves compelled 
to believe all, or much, of what her enemies laid to her 
charge, cannot think without a sigh upon a countenance 
expressive of anything rather than the foul crimes with 
which she was charged when living, and which still con- 
tinue to shade, if not to blacken, her memory. That brow, 
so truly open and regal — those eyebrows, so regularly 
graceful, which yet were saved from the charge of regular 
insipidity by the beautiful effect of the hazel eyes which 
they overarched, and which seem to utter a thousand 
histories — the nose, with all its Grecian precision of out- 
line — the mouth so well proportioned, so sweetly formed, 
as if designed to speak nothing but what was delightful to 
hear — the dimpled chin — the stately swan-like neck, form 
a countenance, the like of which we know not to have ex- 
isted in any other character moving in that class of life, 
where the actresses as well as the actors command general 
and undivided attention. It is in vain to say that the 
portraits which exist of this remarkable woman are not 
like each other ; for, amidst their discrepancy, each pos- 
sesses general features which the eye at once acknowledges 
as peculiar to the vision which our imagination has raised 
while we read her history for the first time, and which has 


THE ABBOT. 


221 


been impressed upon ,it by the numerous prints and 
pictures which we have seen. Indeed we cannot look on 
the worst of them, however deficient in point of execution 
without saying that it is meant for Queen Mary ; and no 
small instance it is of tlie power of beauty, that her charms 
should have remained the subject not merely of admira- 
tion, but of warm and chivalrous interest, after the lapse 
of such a length of time. We know that by far the most 
acute of those who, in latter days, have adopted the un- 
favorable view of Mary’s character, longed, like the exe- 
cutioner before his dreadful task was performed, to kiss 
the fair hand of her on whom he was about to perform so 
horrible a duty. 

Dressed, then, in a deep mourning robe,- and with all 
those charms of face, shape, and manner, with which faith- 
ful tradition has made each reader familiar, Mary Stewart 
ad\anced to meet the Lady of Lochleven, who, on her part, 
endeavored to conceal dislike and apprehension under the 
appearance of respectful indifference. The truth was, that 
she had experienced repeatedly the Queen’s superiority in 
that species of disguised yet cutting sarcasm, with which 
women can successfully avenge themselves for real and 
substantial injuries. It may be well doubted, whether this 
talent was not as fatal to its possessor as the many others 
enjoyed by that highly gifted, but most unhappy female ; 
for, while it often afforded her a momentary triumph over 
her keepers, it failed not to exasperate their resentment ; 
and the satire and sarcasm in which she had indulged were 
frequently retaliated by the deep and bitter hardships 
which they had the power of inflicting. It is well known 
that her death was at length hastened by a letter which 
she wrote to Queen Elizabeth, in which she treated her 
jealous rival, and the Countess of Shrewsbury, with the 
keenest irony and ridicule. 

As the ladies met together, the Queen said, bending her 
head at the same time, in returnlo the obeisance of the 
Lady Lochleven, “We are this day fortunate — we enjoy 
the company of our amiable hostess at an unusual hour, and 
during a period which we have hitherto been permitted to 
give to our private exercise. But our good hostess knows 
well she has at all times access to our presence, and need not 
observe the useless ceremony of requiring our permission.” 

“ I am sorry my presence is deemed an intrusion by your 
Grace,” said the Lady of Lochleven. “ I came but to an- 
nounce the arrival of an addition to your train,” motioning 


222 


THE ABBOT. 


with her hand toward Roland Graeme ; “ a circumstance 
to which ladies are seldom indifferent.” 

“ Oh ! I crave your ladysliip’s pardon ; and am bent to 
the earth with obligations for the kindness of my nobles — 
or my sovereigns shall I call them ? — who have permitted 
me such a respectable addition to my personal retinue.” 

“ They have indeed studied, madam,” said the Lady of 
Lochleven, “ to show their kindness toward your Grace — 
something at the risk perhaps of sound policy, and I trust 
their doings will not be misconstrued.” 

‘"Impossible!” said the Queen; “the bounty which 
permits the daughter of so many kings, and who yet is 
Queen of the realm, the attendance of two waiting-women 
and a boy, is a grace which Mary Stewart can never suf- 
ficiently acknowledge. Why ! my train will be equal to 
that of any country dame in this your kingdom of Fife, 
saving but the lack of a gentleman usher, and a pair or 
two of blue-coated serving-men. But I must not forget, in 
my selfish joy, the additional trouble and charges to which 
this magnificent augmentation of our train will put our 
kind hostess, and the whole house of Lochleven. It is this 
prudent anxiety, I am aware, which clouds your brows, my 
worthy lady. But be of good cheer ; the crown of Scot- 
land has many a fair manor, and your affectionate son, and 
my no less affectionate brother, will endow the good knight 
your^ husband with the best of them, ere Mary should be 
dismissed from this hospitable castle from your Ladvship’s 
lack of means to support the charges.” 

“The Douglases of Lochleven, madam,” answered the 
lady, “ have known for ages how to discharge their duty to 
the State, without looking for reward, even when the task 
was both irksome and dangerous.” 

“Nay! but, my dear Lochleven,” said the Queen, “you 
are over scrupulous— I pray you accept of a goodly 
manor ; what should support the Queen of Scotland in this 
her princely court, saving her own crown-lands — and who 
should minister to the wants of a mother, save an affec- 
tionate son like the Earl of Murray, who possesses so won- 
derfully both the power and inclination ? — Or said you it 
was the danger of the task which clouded your smooth and 
hospitable brow ? — No doubt, a page is a formidable addi- 
tion to my body-guard of females ; and I bethink me it , 
must have been for that reason that my Lord of Lindesay ' 
refused even now to venture wdthin the reach of a force so ] 
formidable, without being attended by a competent retinue.” . l 


7'HE ABBOT. 


221 


The Lady Lochleven started, and looked something sur- 
prised ; and Mary suddenly changing her manner from 
the smooth ironical affectation of mildness to an accent of 
austere command, and drawing up at the same time her 
fine person, said, with the full majesty of her rank, “ Yes ! 
Lady of Lochleven ; I know that Ruthven is already in 
the castle, and that Lindesay waits on the bank the re- 
turn of your barge to bring him hither along with Sir 
Robert Melville. For what purpose do these nobles come 
— and why am I not in ordinary decency apprised of their 
arrival ? ” 

“ Their purpose, madam,” replied the Lady of Loch- 
leven, “ they must themselves explain — but a formal an- 
nunciation were needless, where your Grace hath attend- 
ants who can play the espial so well.” 

“ Alas ! poor Fleming,” said the Queen, turning to the 
elder of the female attendants, “ thou wilt be tried, con- 
demned, and gibbeted, for a spy in the garrison, because 
thou didst chance to cross the great hall while my good 
Lady of Lochleven was parleying at the full pitch of her 
voice with her pilot Randal. Put black wool in thy ears, 
girl, as you value the wearing of them longer. Remember, 
in the Castle of Lochleven, ears and tongues are matters not 
of use, but for show merely. Oiir good hostess can hear, 
as well as speak, for us all. We excuse your farther attend- 
ance, my lady hostess,” she said, once more addressing the 
object of her resentment, “ and retire to prepare for an in- 
terview with our rebel lords. We will use the ante-chamber 
of our sleeping apartment as our hall of audience. You, 
young man,” she proceeded, addressing Roland Graeme, 
and at once softening the ironical sharpness of her manner 
into good-humored raillery, “you, who are all our male 
attendance, from our Lord High Chamberlain down to our 
least galopin, follow us to prepare our court.” 

She turned, and walked slowly toward the castle. The 
Lady of Lochleven folded her arms, and smiled in bitter 
resentment as she watched her retiring steps. 

“ The whole male attendance ! ” she muttered, repeating 
the Queen’s last words, “and well for thee had it been had 
thy train never been larger;” then turning to Roland, in 
whose way she had stood while making this pause, she 
made room for him to pass, saying at the same time, “Art 
thou already eaves-dropping ? follow thy mistress, minion, 
and, if thou wilt, tell her what I have now said.” 

Roland Graeme hastened after his royal mistress and her 


224 


THE ABBOT. 


attendants, who had just entered a postern-gate communi- 
cating betwixt the castle and the small garden. They 
ascended a winding-stair as high as the second story, 
which was in a great measure occupied by a suite of three 
rooms, opening into each other, and assigned as the dwell- 
ing of the captive Princess. The outermost was a small 
hall or anteroom, within which opened a large parlor, and 
from that again the queen’s bed-room. Another small 
apartment, which opened into the same parlor, contained 
the beds of the gentlewomen in waiting. 

Roland Graeme stopped, as became his station, in the 
outermost of these apartments, there to await such orders 
as might be communicated to liim. From the grated win- 
dow of the room he saw Lindesay, Melville, and their fol- 
lowers disembark ; and observed that they were met at the 
castle gate by a third noble, to whom Lindesay exclaimed, 
in his loud harsh voice, “ My Lord of Ruthven, you have 
the start of us ! ” 

At this instant, the page’s attention was called to a burst 
of hysterical sobs from the inner apartment, and to the 
hurried ejaculations of the terrified females, which led him 
almost instantly to their assistance. When he entered, he 
saw that the Queen had thrown herself into the large chair 
which stood nearest the door, and was sobbing for breath in 
a strong fit of hysterical affection. The elder female sup- 
ported her in her arms, while the younger bathed her face 
with water and with tears alternately. 

“ Hasten, young man ! ” said the elder lady, in alarm, 
“ fly — call in assistance — she is swooning ! ” 

But the Queen ejaculated in a faint and broken voice, 
“ Stir not, I charge you ! — call no one to witness — I am 
better — I shall recover instantly.” And, indeed, with an 
effort which seemed like that of one struggling for life, 
she sat up in her chair, and endeavored to resume her 
composure, while her features yet trembled with the 
violent emotion of body and mind which she had under- 
gone. “ I am ashamed of my weakness, girls,” she said, 
taking the hands of her attendants ; “but it is over — and I 
am Mary Stewart once more. The savage tone of that 
man’s voice — my knowledge of his insolence — the name 
which he named — the purpose for which they come, may 
excuse a moment’s weakness— and it shall be a moment’s 
only.” She snatched from her head the curch or cap, 
which had been disordered during her hysterical agonv, 
shook down the thick clustered "tresses of dark brown 


THE ABBOT. 


225 


which had been before veiled under it — and drawing her 
slender fingers across the labyrinth which they formed, 
she arose from the chair and stood like the inspired image 
of a Grecian prophetess, in a mood which partook at once 
of sorrow and pride, of smiles and of tears. “ We are ill- 
appointed,” she said, “ to meet our rebel subjects ; but, as 
far as we may, we will strive to present ourselves as be- 
comes their Queen. Follow me, my maidens,” she said ; 
‘‘ what says thy favorite song, my Fleming ? 


‘ My maids, come to thy dressing-bower, 

And deck my nut-brown hair ; 

Where’er ye laid a plait before. 

Look ye lay ten times mair.’ 

Alas!” she added, when she had repeated with a smile 
these lines of an old ballad, “ violence has already robbed 
me of the ordinary decorations of my rank ; and the few 
that nature gave me have been destroyed by sorrow and by 
fear.” Yet while she spoke thus, she again let her slender 
fingers stray through the wilderness of the beautiful tresses 
which veiled her kingly neck and swelling bosom, as if, in 
her agony of mind, she had not altogether lost the con- 
sciousness of her unrivalled charms. Roland Graeme, on 
whose youth, inexperience, and ardent sense of what was 
dignified and lovely, the demeanor of so fair and high-born 
a lady wrought like the charm of a magician, stood rooted 
to the spot with surprise and interest, longing to hazard 
his life in a quarrel so fair as that which Mary Stewart’s 
must needs be. She had been bred in France — she was pos- 
sessed of the most distinguished beauty — she had reigned 
a Queen, and a Scottish Queen, to whom knowledge of 
character was as essential as the use of vital air. In all 
these capacities, Mary was, of all women on the earth, 
most alert at perceiving and using the advantages which 
her charms gave her over almost all who came within the 
sphere of their influence. She cast on Roland a glance 
which might have melted a heart of stone. “My poor 
boy,” she said, with a feeling partly real, partly politic, 
“ thou art a stranger to us — sent to this doleful captivity 
from the society of some tender mother, or sister, or 
maiden, with whom you had freedom to tread a gay meas- 
ure round the Maypole. I grieve for you ; but you are 
the only male in my limited household— wilt thou obey 
my orders ? ” 


21'6 


THE ABBOT. 


“ To the death, madam,” said Graeme, in a determined 
tone. 

“Then keep the door of mine apartment,” said the 
Queen ; “keep it till they offer actual violence, or till we 
shall be fitly arrayed to receive these intrusive visitors.” 

“ I will defend it till they pass over my body,” said Ro- 
land Graeme ; any hesitation which he had felt concerning 
the line of conduct he ought to pursue being completely 
swept away by the impulse of the moment. 

“ Not so, my good youth,” answered Mary ; “not so, I 
command thee. If I have one faithful subject beside me, 
much need, God wot, I have to care for his safety. Resist 
them but till they are put to the shame of using actual vio- 
lence, and then give way, I charge you. Remember nw 
commands.” And with a smile expressive at once of favor 
and of authority, she turned from him, and, followed by 
her attendants, entered the bedroom. 

The youngest paused for half a second ere she followed 
her companion, and made a signal to Roland Grmme with 
her hand. He had been already long aware that this was 
Catherine Seyton — a circumstance which could not much 
surprise a youth of quick intellects, w^ho recollected the 
sort of mysterious discourse which had passed betwixt the 
two matrons at the deserted nunnery, and on which his 
meeting with Catherine in this place seemed to cast so 
much light. Yet such was the engrossing effect of Mary’s 
presence, that it surmounted for the moment even the feel- 
ings of a youthful lover ; and it was not until Catherine 
Seyton had disappeared, that Roland began to consider in 
what relation they were to stand to each other. “ She held 
up her hand to me in a commanding manner,” he thought ; 
“perhaps she wanted to confirm my purpose for the exe- 
cution of the Queen’s commands ; for I think she could 
scarce purpose to scare me with the sort of discipline 
which she administered to the groom in the frieze-jacket 
and to poor Adam Woodcock. But we will see to that 
anon ; meantime, let us do justice to the trust reposed in 
us by this unhappy Queen. I think my Lord of Murray 
will himself own that it is the duty of a faithful page to 
defend his lady against intrusion on her privacy.” 

.ycordingly, he stepped to tlie little vestibule, made fast, 
with lock and bar, the door which opened from thence to 
the laige staircase, and then sat himself dowm to attend 
the result. He had not long to wait— a rude and strong 
hand first essayed to lilt the latch, then pushed and 


THE ABB07\ 


227 


shook the door with violence, and, when it resisted his 
attempt to open it, exclaimed, “Undo the door there, vou 
within ! ” 

“Why, and at whose command,” said the page, “am I 
to undo the door of the apartments of the Queen of Scot- 
land ? ” 

Another vain attempt, which made hinge and bolt jingle, 
showed that the impatient applicant without would will- 
ingly have entered altogether regardless of his challenge ; 
but at length an answer was returned. 

“ Undo the door, on your peril — the Lord Lindesay 
comes to speak with the Lady Mary of Scotland.” 

“The Lord Lindesay, as a Scottish noble,” answered 
the page, “must await his sovereign’s leisure.” 

An earnest altercation ensued amongst those without, in 
which Roland distinguished the remarkable harsh voice of 
Lindesay in reply to Sir Robert Melville, who appeared to 
have been using some soothing language — “No! no! no! 
I tell thee, no ! I will place a petard against the door 
rather than be balked by a profligate woman, and bearded 
by an insolent footboy.” 

“Yet, at least,” said Melville, “let me try fair means 
in the first instance. Violence to a lady would stain your 
scutcheon for ever. Or await till my Lord Ruthven 
comes.” 

“I will await no longer,” said Lindesay; “it is high 
time the business were done, and we on our return to the 
council. But thou mayest try thy fair play, as thou callest 
it, while I cause my train to prepare the petard. I came 
hither provided with as good gunpowder as blew up the 
Kirk of Field.” 

“ For God's sake, be patient,” said Melville ; and ap- 
proaching the door, he said, as speaking to those within, 
“Let the Queen know, that I, her faithful servant, Robert 
Melville, do entreat her, for her own sake, and to prevent 
W'orse consequences, that she will undo the door, and ad- 
mit Lord Lindesay, who brings a mission from the Coun- 
cil of State.” 

“I will do your errand to the Queen,” said the page, 
“ and report to you her answer.” 

He went to the door of the bedchamber, and tapping 
against it gently, it was opened by the elderlv lady, to 
whom he communicated his errand, and returned with di- 
rections from the Queen to admit Sir Robert Melville and 
Lord Lindesay. Roland Graeme returned to the vestibule, 


228 


TITE ABBOT. 


and opened tlic door accordingly, into which the Lord 
Lindesay strode, with the air of a soldier who has fought 
his way into a conquered fortress ; while Melville, deeply 
dejected, followed him more slowly. 

“ I draw you to witness, and to lecord,” said the page to 
this last, ‘‘ that, save for the especial commands of the 
Queen, I would have made good the entrance with my best 
strength, and my best blood, against all Scotland.” 

“ Be silent, young man,” said Melville, in a tone of grave 
rebuke ; “ add not brands to fire — this is no time to make 
a flourish of thy boyish chivalry.” 

“ She has not appeared even yet,” said Lindesay, who 
had now reached the midst of the parlor or audience- 
room ; “how call you this trifling?” 

“ Patience, my lord,” replied Sir Robert, “ time presses 
not — and Lord Ruthven hath not as yet descended.” 

At this moment the door of the inner apartment opened, 
and Queen Mary presented herself, advancing with an air 
of peculiar grace and majesty, and seeming totally unruL 
fled, either by the visit, or by the rude manner in which it 
had been enforced. Her dress was a robe of black vel- 
vet ; a small ruff, open in front, gave a full view of her 
beautifully formed chin and neck, but veiled the bosom. 

On her head she wore a small cap of lace, and a trans- 
parent white veil hung from her shoulders over the long 
black robe, in large loose folds, so that it could be drawn 
at pleasure over the face and person. She wore a cross 
of gold around her neck, and had her rosary of gold and 
ebony hanging from her girdle. She was closely followed 
by her two ladies, wlio remained standing behind her dur- 
ing the conference. Even Lord Lindesay, though the 
rudest noble of that rude age, was surprised into some- 
thing like respect by the unconcerned and majestic mien 
of her, whom he had expected to find frantic with impo^ 
tent passion, or dissolved in useless and vain sorrow, ov 
overwhelmed with the fears likely in such a situation to 
assail fallen royalty. 

“ We fear we have detained you, my Lord of Lindesay,” 
said the Queen, while she courtesied with dignity in an- 
swertohis reluctant obeisance; “but a female does not 
willingly receive her visitors without some minutes spent 
at the toilette. Men, my lord, are less dependent on such 
ceremonies.” 

Lord Lindesay, casting his eye down on his own travel- 
stained and disordered dress, muttered something of a hasty 


THE ABBOT 


229 


journey, and the Queen paid her greeting to Sir Robert 
Melville, with courtesy, and even, as it seemed, with kind- 
ness. There was then a dead pause, during which Linde- 
say looked toward the door, as if expecting with impa- 
tience the colleague of their embassy. The Queen alone 
was entirely unembarrassed, and as if to break the silence, 
she addressed Lord Lindesay, with a glance at the large 
and cumbrous sword which he wore, as already mentioned, 
hanging from his neck. 

“ You have there a trusty and a weighty travelling com- 
panion, my lord. I trust you expected to meet with no 
enemy here, against whom such a formidable weapon could 
be necessary It is, methinks, somewhat a singular orna- 
ment for a court, though I am, as I well need to be, too 
much of a Stewart to fear a sword.” 

“It is not the first time, madam,” replied Lindesay, 
bringing round the weapon so as to rest its point on the 
ground, and leaning one hand on the huge cross-handle, 
“ it is not the first time that this weapon lias intruded it- 
self into the presence of the House of Stewart.” 

“ Possibly, my lord,” replied the Queen, “ it may have 
done service to my ancestors — Your ancestors were men 
of loyalty.” 

“Ay, madam,” replied he, “service it hath done; but 
such as kings love neither to acknowledge nor to reward. 
It was the service which the knife renders to the tree when 
trimming it to the quick, and depriving it of the superflu- 
ous growth of rank and unfruitful suckers, which rob it of 
nourishment.” 

“ You talk riddles, my lord,” said Mary ; “ I will hope 
the explanation carries nothing insulting with it.” 

“You shall judge, madam,” answered Lindesay. “With 
this good sword was Archibald Douglas, Earl of Angus, 
girded on the memorable day when he acquired the name 
of Bell-the-Cat, for dragging from the presence of your 
great-grandfather, the third James of the race, a crew of 
minions, flatterers, and favorites, whom he hanged over 
the bridge of Lauder, as a warning to such reptiles how 
they approach a Scottish throne. With this same weapon, 
the same inflexible champion of Scottish honor and nobil- 
ity slew at one blow Spens of Kilspindie, a courtier of 
your grandfather, James the Fourth, who had dared to 
speak lightly of him in the royal presence. They fought 
near the brook of Fala ; and Bell-the-Cat, with this blade, 
sheared through the thigh of his opponent, and lopped 


230 


THE ABBOT. 


the limb as easily as a shepherd’s boy slices a twig from a 
sapling.” 

“ My lord,” replied the Queen, reddening, “my nerves 
are too good to be alarmed even by this terrible history — 
May I ask how a blade so illustrious passed from the 
House of Douglas to that of Lindesay ? — Methii.ks it 
should have been preserved as a consecrated relic, by a 
family who have held all that they could do against their 
king, to be done in favor of their country.” 

“ Nay, madam,” said Melville, . anxiously interfering, 
“ ask not that question of Lord Lindesay — And you, my 
lord, for shame — for decency — forbear to reply to it.” 

“ It is time that this lady should- hear the truth,” replied 
Lindesay. 

“ And be assured,” said the Queen, “ that she will be 
moved to anger by none that you can tell her, my lord. 
There are cases in which just scorn has always the mas- 
tery over just anger.” 

“Then know,” said Lindesay, “that upon the field of 
Carberry Hill, when that false and infamous traitor and 
murderer, James, sometime Earl of Bothwell and nick- 
named Duke of Orkney, offered to do personal battle with 
any of the associated nobles who came to drag him to jus- 
tice, I accepted his challenge, and was by the noble Earl 
of Morton gifted with his good sword, that I might there- 
with fight it out — Ah 1 so help me Heaven, had his pre- 
sumption been one grain more, or his cowardice one 
grain less, I should have done such work with this good 
steel on his traitorous corpse, that the hounds and the 
carrion-crows should have found their morsels daintily 
carved to their use ! ” 

The Queen’s courage well-nigh gave way at the mention 
of Both well’s name — a name connected with such a train 
of guilt, shame, and disaster. But the prolonged boast of 
Lindesay gave her time to rally herself, and to answer 
with an appearance of cold contempt — “ It is easy to slay 
an enemy who enters not the lists. But had Mary Stew- 
art inherited her father’s sword as well as his sceptre, the 
boldest of her rebels should not upon that day have com- 
plained that they had no one to cope withal. Your lord- 
ship will forgive me if I abridge this conference. A brief 
ascription of a bloody fight is long enough to satisfy a 
lady s curiosity; and unless my Lord of Lindesay has 
more important to tell us than of the deeds 
which old Bell-the-Cat achieved, and how he would him- 


THE ABBOT. 


271 


self have emulated them, had time and tide permitted, we 
will retire to our private apartment, and you, Fleming, 
shall finish reading to us yonder little treatise, Rodo- 
montades Espagnolles.'" 

“ Tarry, madam,” said Lindesay, his complexion redden- 
ing in his turn ; “ I know your quick wit too well of old 
to have sought an interview that you might sharpen its 
edge at the expense of my honor. Lord Riithven and 
myself, with Sir Robert Melville as a concurrent, come to 
your Grace on the part of the Secret Council, to tender to 
you what much concerns the safety of your own life and 
the welfare of the State.” 

“The Secret Council?” said the Queen; “by what 
powers can it subsist or act, while I, from whom it holds 
its character, am here detained under unjust restraint ? 
But it matters not — what concerns the welfare of Scotland 
shall be acceptable to Mary Stewart, come from whatever 
quarter it will — and for what concerns her own life, she 
has lived long enough to be weary of it, even at the age of 
twenty-five. — Where is your colleague, my lord ? — why tar- 
ries he ? ” 

“He comes, madam,” said Melville, and Lord Ruthven 
entered at the instant, holding in his hand a packet. As 
the Queen returned his salutation she became deadly pale, 
but instantly recovered herself by dint of strong and sud- 
den resolution, just as the noble, whose appearance 
seemed to excite such emotions in her bosom, entered 
the apartment in company with George Douglas, the 
youngest son of the Knight of Lochleven, who, during the 
absence of his father and brethren, acted as Seneschal of 
the Castle, under the direction of [the elder Lady Loch- 
leven, his father’s mother. 


CHAPTER TWENTY-SECOND. 

I give this heavy weight from off my head, 

And this unwieldy sceptre from my hand ; 

With mine own tears I wash away my balm, 

With mine own hand I give away my crown. 

With mine own tongue deny my sacred state, 

With mine own breath release all duteous oaths. 

Richard II. 

Lord Ruthven had the look and bearing which became 
a soldier and a statesman, and the material cast of his form 
and features procured him the popular epithet of Grey- 


232 


THE ABBOT, 


steil, by which he was distinguished by his intimates, after 
the hero of a metrical romance then generally known. His 
dress, which was a buff-coat embroidered, had a half mili- 
tary character, but exhibited nothing of the sordid negli- 
gence which distinguished that of Lindesay. But the sou 
of an ill-fated sire, and the father of a yet more unfortu- 
nate family, bore in his look that cast of an inauspicious 
melancholy by which the physiognomists of that time pre- 
tended to distinguish those who were predestined to a vio- 
lent and unhappy death. 

The terror which the presence of this nobleman im- 
pressed on the Queen’s mind arose from the active share 
he had borne in the slaughter of David Rizzio ; his father 
having presided at the perpetration of that abominable 
crime, although so weak from long and wasting illness 
that he could not endure the weight of his armor, having 
arisen from a sick-bed*to commit a murder in the presence 
of his Sovereign. On that occasion his son also had at- 
tended and taken an active part. It was little to be w^on- 
dered at, that the Queen, considering her condition when 
such a deed of horror was acted in her presence, should 
retain an instinctive terror for the principal actors in the 
murder. She returned, however, with grace the salutation 
of Lord Ruthven, and extended her hand to George Doug- 
las, w’-ho kneeled, and kissed it with respect ; the first mark 
of a subject’s homage which Roland Graeme had seen any 
of them render to the captive Sovereign. She returned his 
greeting in silence, and there was a brief pause, during 
which the steward of the castle, a man of a sad brow and 
a severe eye, placed, under George Douglas’s directions, a 
table and writing materials ; and the page, obedient to his 
mistress’s dumb signal, advanced a large chair to the side 
on which the Queen stood, the table thus forming a sort of 
bar which divided the Queen and her personal followers 
from her unwelcome visitors. The steward then withdrew 
after a low reverence. When he had closed the door be- 
hind him, the Queen broke silence — “ With your favor, my 
lords, I will sit — my walks are not indeed extensive enough 
at present to fatigue me greatly, yet I find repose something 
more necessary than usual.” 

She sat down accordingly, and, shading her cheek with 
her beautiful hand, looked keenly and impressively at each 
of the nobles in turn. Mary Fleming applied her kerchief 
to her eyes, and Catherine Seyton and Roland Graeme ex- 
changed a glance, which showed that both were too deeply 


THE ABBOT. 


233 


engrossed with sentiments of interest and commiseration 
for their royal mistress, to think of anything which re- 
garded themselves. 

“ I wait the purpose of your mission, my lords,” said the 
Queen, after she had been seated for about a minute with^ 
out a word being spoken — “ I wait your message from 
those you call the Secret Council. I trust it is a petition 
of pardon, and a desire that I will resume my rightful 
throne, without using with due severity my right of pun- 
ishing those who have dispossessed me of it.” 

“ Madam,” replied Ruthven, “ it is painful for us to speak 
harsh truths to a Princess who has long ruled us. But we 
come to offer, not to implore, pardon. In a word, madam, 
we have to propose to you, on the part of the Secret Coun- 
cil, that you sign these deeds, which will contribute greatly 
to the pacification of the State, the advancement of God’s 
word, and the welfare of your own future life.” 

“Am I expected to take these fair words on trust, my 
lord ? or may I hear the contents of these reconciling pa- 
pers ere I am asked to sign them ?” 

“ Unquestionably, madam ; it is bur purpose and wish 
you should read what you are required to sign,” replied 
Ruthven. 

“ Required ? ” replied the Queen, with some emphasis ; 
“but the phrase suits well the matter— read, my lord.” 

The Lord Ruthven proceeded to read a formal instru- 
ment, running in the Queen’s name, and setting forth 
that she had been called, at an early age,- to the adminis- 
tration of the crown and realm of Scotland, and had toiled 
diligently therein, until she was in body and spirit so 
wearied out and disgusted, that she was unable any longer 
to endure the travail and pain of State affairs ; and that, 
since God had blessed her with a fair and hopeful son, 
she was desirous to insure to him, even while she yet 
lived, his succession to the crown, which was his by right 
of hereditary descent. “ Wherefore,” the instrument pro- 
ceeded, “we, of the motherly affection we bear to our 
said son, have renounced and demitted, and by these our 
letters, of free good-will, renounce and demit, the crown, 
government, and guiding, of the realm of Scotland, in 
favor of our said son, that he may succeed to us as na- 
tive prince thereof, as much as if we had been removed by 
disease, and not by our own proper act. And that this de- 
mission of our royal authority may liave the more full and 
solemn effect, and none pretend ignorance, we give, grant, 


234 


THE ABBOT. 


and commit, full and free and plain power to our trusty- 
cousins, Lord Lindesay of the Byres, and William Lord Ruth- 
ven, to appear in our name before as many of the nobility, 
clergy, and burgesses, as may be assembled at Stirling, and 
there, in our name and behalf, publicly, and in their pres- 
ence, to renounce the Crown, guidance, and government, 
of this our kingdom of Scotland.” 

The Queen here broke in with an air of extreme sur- 
prise. “ How is this, my lords ? ” she said ; “ Are rny ears 
turned rebels, that they deceive me with sounds so extraor- 
dinary ? And yet it is no wonder that, having conversed 
so long with rebellion, they should now force its language 
upon my understanding. Say I am mistaken, my lords — 
say, for the honor of yourselves and the Scottish nobility, 
that my right trusty cousins of Lindesay and Ruthven, two 
barons of warlike fame and ancient line, have not sought 
the prison-house of their kind mistress for such a purpose 
as these words seem to imply. Say, for the sake of honor 
and loyalty, that my ears have deceived me.” 

“No, madam,” said Ruthven, gravely, “your ears do not 
deceive you — they d^eived you when they were closed 
against the preachers of the evangele, and the honest ad- 
vice of your faithful subjects ; and when they were ever 
open to flattery of pickthanks and traitors, foreign cubic- 
ulars and domestic minions. The land may no longer 
brook the rule of one who cannot rule herself ; wherefore, 
I pray you to comply with the last remaining wish of your 
subjects and counsellors, and spare yourself and us the 
farther agitation of matter so painful.” 

“And is this all my loving subjects require of me, my 
lord?” said Mary, in a tone of bitter irony. “Do they 
really stint themselves to the easy boon that I should yield 
up the crown, which is mine by birthright, to an infant 
which is scarcely more than a year old — fling down my scep- 
tre, and take up a distaff ? Oh, no ! it is too little for them 
to ask. That other roll of parchment contains something 
harder to be complied with, and which may more highly 
task my readiness to comply with the petitions of my lieges.” 

“This parchment,” answered Ruthven, in the same tone 
of inflexible gravity, and unfolding the instrument as he 
spoke, “ is one by which your grace constitutes your near- 
est in blood, and the most honorable and trustworthy of 
your subjects, James, Earl of Murray, Regent of the king- 
dom during the minority of the young King. He already 
holds the appointment from the Secret Council.” 


THE ABBOT. 


23s 


The Queen gave a sort of shriek, and, clapping her 
hands together, exclaimed, “ Comes the arrow out of his 
quiver ?— out of my brother’s bow ? Alas ! I looked for 
his return from France as my sole, at least my readiest, 
chance of deliverance. And yet, when I heard that he had 
assumed the government, I guessed he would shame to 
wield it in my name.” 

“ I must pray your answer, madam,” said Lord Ruthven, 

to the demand of the Council.” 

“ The demand of the Council !” said the Queen ; “say 
rather the demand of a set of robbers, impatient to divide 
the spoil they liave seized. To such a demand, and sent 
by the mouth of a traitor, whose scalp, but for my woman- 
ish mercy, should long since have stood on the city gates, 
Mary of Scotland has no answer.” 

“I trust, madam,” said Lord Ruthven, “my being un- 
acceptable to your presence will not add to your obduracy 
of resolution. It may become you to remember that the 
death of the minion Rizzio cost the house of Ruthven its 
head and leader. My father, more worthy than a whole 
province of such vile sycophants, died in exile, and broken- 
hearted.” 

The Queen clasped her hands on her face, and, resting 
her arms on the table, stooped down her head and wept so 
bitterly, that the tears were seen to find their way in streams 
between the white and slender fingers with which she en- 
deavored to conceal them. 

“My lords,” said Sir Robert Melville, “this is too much 
rigor. Under your lordships’ favor, we came hither, not 
to revive old griefs, but to find the mode of avoiding new 
ones.” 

“ Sir Robert Melville,” said Ruthven, “we best know for 
what purpose we were delegated hither, and wherefore you 
were somewhat unnecessarily sent to attend us.” 

“ Nay, by my hand,” said Lord Lindesay, “ I know not 
why we were cumbered with the good knight, unless he 
comes in place of the lump of sugar which pothicars put 
into their wholesome but bitter medicaments to please a 
f reward child — a needless labor, methinks, where men have 
the means to make them swallow the physic otherwise.” 

“ Nay, my lords,” said Melville, “ ye best know your own 
secret instructions. I conceive I shall best obey mine in 
striving to mediate between her Grace and you.” 

“ Be silent. Sir Robert Melville,” said the Queen, arising, 
and her face still glowing with agitation as she spoke. 


236 


THE ABBOT. 


“ My kerchief, Fleming — I shame that traitors should have 
power to move me thus. Tell me, proud lords,” she added, 
wiping away the tears as she spoke, “ by what earthly war- 
rant can liege subjects pretend to challenge the rights of 
an anointed Sovereign — to throw off the allegiance they 
have vowed, and to take away the crown from the head cn 
which Divine warrant hath placed it ? ” 

“ Madam,” said Ruthven, “ I will deal plainly with vou. 
Your reign, from the dismal field of Pinkiecleugh, when 
you were a babe in the cradle, till now that you stand a 
grown dame before us, hath been such a tragedy of losses, 
disasters, civil dissensions, and foreign wars, that the like 
is not to be found in our chronicles. The French and 
English have, with one consent, made Scotland the battle- 
field on which to fight out their own ancient quarrel. For 
ourselves, every man’s hand hath been against his brother, 
nor hath a year passed over without rebellion and slaugh- 
ter, exile of nobles, and oppressing of the commons. We 
may endure it no longer, and therefore, as a prince, to 
whom God hath refused the gift of hearkening to wise 
counsel, and on whose dealings and projects no blessing 
hath ever descended, we pray you to give way to other 
rule and governance of the land, that a remnant may yet 
be saved to this distracted realm.” 

“ My lord,” said Mary, “it seems to me that you fling on 
my unhappy and devoted head those evils, which, with far 
more justice, I may impute to your own turbulent, wild, 
and untamable dispositions — the frantic violence with 
which you, the Magnates of Scotland, enter into feuds 
against each other, sticking at no cruelty to gratify your 
wrath, taking deep revenge for the slightest offences,* and 
setting at defiance those wise laws which your ancestors 
made for stanching of such cruelty, rebelling against the 
lawful authority, and bearing yourselves as if there were 
no king in the land ; or rather as if each were king in his 
own premises. And now you throw the blame on me — on 
me, whose life has been embittered — whose sleep has been 
broken whose happiness has been wrecked by your dis- 
sensions. Have I not myself been obliged to traverse wilds 
and mountains, at the head of a few faithful followers, to 
maintain peace and to put down oppression ? Have I not 
worn harness on rny person, and carried pistols at my sad- 
dle ; fain to lay aside the softness of a woman, and the dig- 
nity of a Queen, that I might show an example to mv fob 
lowers ? ” I- .7 


THE ABBOT. 


237 

“We grant, madam,” said Lindesay, “that the affrays 
occasioned by your misgovernment may sometimes have 
startled you in the midst of a mask or galliard ; or it may 
be that such may have interrupted the idolatry of the mass, 
or the jesuitical counsels of some French ambassador. But 
the longest and severest journey Avhich your Grace lias 
taken, in my memory, was frorn Hawick to Hermitage 
Castle ; and whether it was for the weal of the state, or for 
your own honor, rests with your Grace’s conscience.” 

The Queen turned to him with inexpressible sweetness 
of tone and manner, and that engaging look which Heaven 
had assigned her, as if to show that the choicest arts to win 
men’s affections may be given in vain. “ Lindesay,” she 
said, “you spoke not to me in this stern tone, and with 
such scurril taunt, yon fair summer evening, when you and 
I shot at the butts against the Earl of Mar and Mary Liv- 
ingstone, and won of them the evening’s collation, in the 
privy garden of Saint Andrew’s. The Master of Lindesay 
was then my friend, and vowed to be my soldier. How I 
have offended the Lord of Lindesay I know not, unless 
honors have changed manners.” 

Hardhearted as he was, Lindesay seemed struck with 
this unexpected appeal, but almost instantly replied, 
“Madam, it is well known that your Grace could in those 
days make fools of whomever approached you. I pretend 
not to have been wiser than others. But gayer men and 
better courtiers soon jostled aside my rude homage, and I 
think that your Grace cannot but remember times, when 
my awkward attempts to take the manners that pleased 
you, were the sport of the court popinjays, the Marys and 
the Frenchwomen.” 

“My lord, I grieve if I have offended you through idle 
gayety,” said the Queen ; “and can but say it was most 
unwittingly done. You are fully revenged ; for through 
gayety,” she said, with a sigh, “ will I never offend any one 
more.” 

“ Ouh time is wasting, madam,” said Lord Ruthven ; “ I 
must pray your decision on this weighty matter which I 
have submitted to you.” 

“ What, my lord ! ” said the Queen, “ upon the instant, 
and without a moment’s time to deliberate ? Can the 
Council, as they term themselves, expect this of me ?” 

“Madam,” replied Ruthven, “the Council hold the 
opinion, that since the fatal term which passed betwixt 
the night of King Henry’s murder and the day of Car- 


7'HE ABBOT, 


238 

berry-hill, your Grace should have held you prepared for 
the measure now proposed, as the easiest escape from 
your numerous dangers and difficulties.” 

“Great God !” exclaimed the Queen; “and is it as a 
boon that you propose to me what every Christian king 
ought to regard as a loss of honor equal to the loss of 
life ! You take from me my crown, my power, my sub- 
jects, my wealth, my state. What, in the name of every 
saint, can you offer, or do you offer, in requital of my com- 
pliance ? ” 

“ We give you pardon,” answered Ruthven, sternly ; 
“we give you space and means to spend your remaining 
life in penitence and seclusion — we give you time to make 
your peace with Heaven, and to receive the pure Gospel, 
which you have ever rejected and persecuted.” 

The Queen turned pale at the menace which this speech, 
as well as the rough and inflexible tones of the speaker, 
seemed distinctly to infer — “And if I do not comply with 
your request so fiercely urged, my lord, what then fol- 
lows ? ” 

She said this in a voice in which female and natural 
fear was contending with the feelings of insulted dignity. 
There was a pause, as if no one cared to return to the 
question a distinct answer. At length Ruthven spoke : 
“There is little need to tell to your Grace, who are well 
read both in the laws and in the chronicles of the realm, 
that murder and adultery are crimes for which ere now 
queens themselves have suffered death.” 

“And where, my lord, or how, found you an accusation 
so horrible against her who stands before you?” said 
Queen Mary. “The foul and odious calumnies which 
have poisoned the general mind of Scotland, and have 
placed me a helpless prisoner in your hands, are surely no 
proof of guilt ?” 

“We need look for no farther proof,” replied the stern 
Lord Ruthven, “than the shameless marriage betwixt the 
widow of the murdered and the leader of the band of mur- 
derers ! They that joined hands in the fated month of 
May, had already united hearts and counsel in the deed 
which preceded that marriage but a few brief weeks.” 

“ My lord, my lord ! ” said the Queen, eagerly, “ remem- 
ber well there were more consents than mine to that fatal 
union, that most unhappy act of a most unhappy life. 
The evil steps adopted by sovereigns are often the sug- 
gestion of bad counsellors ; but these counsellors are 


THE ABBOT. 


239 


worse than fiends who tempt and betray, if they them- 
selves are the first to call their unfortunate princes to an- 
swer for the consequences of their own advice. Heard ye 
never of a bond by the nobles, my lords, recommending 
that ill-fated union to the ill-fated Mary? Methinks, were 
it carefully examined, we should see that the names of 
Morton, and of Lindesay, and of Ruthven, may be found 
in that bond, whicli pressed me to marry that unhappy 
man. Ah ! stout and loyal Lord Herries, who never knew 
guile or dishonor, you bent your noble knee to me in 
vain, to warn me of my danger, and wert yet the first to 
draw thy good sword in my cause when I suffered for neg- 
lecting thy counsel ! Faithful knight and true noble, what 
a difference betwixt thee and those counsellors of evil, 
who now threaten my life for having fallen into the snares 
they spread for me ! ” 

“Madam,” said Ruthven, “we know that you are an 
orator; and perhaps for that reason the Council has sent 
hither men, whose converse hath been more with the wars 
than with the language of the schools or the cabals of 
state. We but desire to know if, on assurance of life and 
honor, you will demit the rule of this kingdom of Scot- 
land ? ” 

“And what warrant have I,” said the Queen, “that ye 
will keep treaty with me, if I should barter my kingly 
estate for seclusion, and leave to weep in secret ? ” 

“ Our honor and our word, madam,” answered Ruth- 
ven. 

“They are too slight and unsolid pledges, my lord,” 
said the Queen ; “add at least a handful of thistle-down 
to give them weight in the balance.” 

“Away, Ruthven,” said Lindesay ; “she was ever deaf 
to counsel, save of slaves and sycophants ; let her remain 
by her refusal and abide by it ! ” 

“ Stay, my lord,” said Sir Robert Melville, “ or rather 
permit me to have but a few minutes’ private audience 
with her Grace. If my presence with you could avail 
aught, it must be as a mediator — do not, I conjure you, 
leave the castle, or break off the conference, until I bring 
you word how her Grace shall finally stand disposed.” 

“We will remain in the hall,” said Lindesay, “for half- 
an-hour’s space ; but in despising our words and our 
pledge of honor, she has touched the honor of my name 
— let her look herself to the course she has to pursue. If 
the half-hour should pass away without her determining 


240 


THE ABBOT, 


to comply with the demands of the nation, her career will 
be brief enough.” 

With little ceremony the two nobles left the apartment, 
traversed the vestibule, and descended the winding stairs, 
the clash of Lindesay’s huge sword being heard as it rang 
against each step in his descent. George Douglas followed 
them, after exchanging with Melville a gesture of sur- 
prise and sympathy. 

As soon as they were gone, the Queen, giving way to 
grief, fear, and agitation, threw herself into the seat, 
wrung her hands, and seemed to abandon herself to de- 
spair. Her female attendants, weeping themselves, en- 
deavored yet to pray her to be composed, and Sir Robert 
Melville, kneeling at her feet, made the same entreaty. 
After giving way to a passionate burst of sorrow, she at 
length said to Melville, “ Kneel not to me, Melville — mock 
me not with the homage of the person, when the heart is 
far away — Why stay you behind with the deposed, the 
condemned ? her who has but few hours perchance to 
live ? You have been favored as well as the rest ; why 
do you continue the empty show of gratitude and thank- 
fulness any longer than they ? ” 

“ Madam,” said Sir Robert Melville, “ so help me Heav- 
en at my need, my heart is as true to you as when you 
were in your highest place.” 

“ True to me ! true to me ! ” repeated the Queen, with 
some scorn ; “ tush, Melville, what signifies the truth 
which walks hand in hand with my enemies’ falsehood ? — 
thy hand and thy sword have never been so well acquainted 
that I can trust thee in aught where manhood is required 
— Oh, Seyton, for thy bold father, who is both wise, true, 
and valiant !” 

Roland Graeme could withstand no longer his earnest 
desire to offer his services to a princess so distressed and 
so beautiful. “ If one sword,” he said, “ madam, can do 
anything to back the wisdom of this grave counsellor, or 
to defend your rightful cause, here is my weapon, and 
here is my hand ready to draw and use it.” And raising 
his sword with one hand he laid the other upon the hilt. 

As he thus held up the weapon, Catherine Seyton ex- 
claimed, “ Methinks I see a token from my father, mad- 
am,” and immediately crossing the apartment she took 
Roland Graeme by tlie skirt of the cloak, and asked him 
earnestly whence he had that sword. 

The page answered with surprise, “ Methinks this is no 


THE ABBOT. 


241 


presence in which to jest — Surely, damsel, you yourself 
best know whence and how I obtained the weapon.” 

“ Is this a time for folly ?” said Catherine Seyton ; “un- 
sheathe the sword instantly ! ” 

“ If the Queen commands me,” said the youth, looking 
toward his royal mistress. 

“ For shame, maiden ! ” said the Queen ; “wouldst thou 
instigate the poor boy to enter into useless strife with the 
two most approved soldiers in Scotland ? ” 

“ In your Grace’s cause,” replied the page, “ I will vent- 
ure my life upon them ! ” And as he spoke he drew his 
weapon partly from the sheath, and a piece of parchment, 
rolled around the blade, fell out and dropped on the floor. 
Catherine Seyton caught it up with eager haste. 

“ It is my father’s handwriting,” she said, “and doubt- 
less conveys his best duteous advice to your Majesty ; I 
know that it was prepared to be sent in this weapon, but I 
expected another messenger.” 

“ By my faith, fair one,” thought Roland, “and if you 
knew not that I had such a secret missive about me, I was 
yet more ignorant.” 

The Queen cast her eye upon the scroll, arid remained a 
few minutes wrapped in deep thought. “ Sir Robert Mel- 
ville,” she at length said, “ this scroll advises me to sub- 
mit myself to necessity, and to subscribe the deeds these 
hard men have brought with them, as one who gives way 
to the natural fear inspired by the threats of rebels and 
murderers. You, Sir Robert, are a wise man, and Seyton 
is both sagacious and brave. Neither, I think, would mis- 
lead me in this matter.” 

“ Madam,” said Melville, “ if I have not the strength of 
body of the Lord Herries or Seyton, I will yield to neither 
in zeal for your Majesty’s service. I cannot fight for you 
like these lords, but neither of them is more willing to die 
for your service.” 

“ I believe it, my old and' faithful counsellor,” said the 
Queen, “ and believe me, Melville, I did thee but a mo- 
ment’s injustice. Read wdiat my Lord Seyton hath writ- 
ten to us, and give us thy best counsel.” 

He glanced over the parchment, and instantly replied — 
“ Oh, my dear and royal mistress, only treason itself could 
give you other advice than Lord Seyton has here expressed. 
He, Herries, Huntly, the English Ambassador Throgmor- 
ton, and others, your friends, are all alike of opinion, that 
whatever deeds or instruments you execute within these 
16 


242 


THE ABBOT. 


walls, must lose all force and effect, as extorted from your 
Grace by duresse, by sufferance of present evil, and fear 
of men, and harm to ensue on your refusal. Yield, there- 
fore, to the tide, and be assured, that in subscribing what 
parchments they present to you, you bind yourself to noth- 
ing, since your act of signature wants that which alone can 
make it valid, the free will of the granter.” 

“Ay, so says my Lord Seyton,” replied Mary; “yet 
methinks, for the daughter of so long a line of sovereigns 
to resign her birthright, because rebels press upon her 
with threats, argues little of royalty, and will read ill for 
the fame of Mary in future chronicles. Tush ! Sir Robert 
Melville, the traitors may use black threats and bold words, 
but they will not dare to put their hands forth on our per- 
son.” 

“ Alas ! madam, they have already dared so far and in- 
curred such peril by the lengths which they have gone, 
that they are but one step from the worst and uttermost.” 

“ Surely,” said the Queen, her fears again predominating, 
“ Scottish nobles would not lend themselves to assassinate 
a helpless woman ? ” 

“Bethink you, madam,” he replied, “what horrid spec- 
tacles have been seen in our day ; and what act is so dark, 
that some Scottish hand has not been found to dare it ? 
Lord Lindesay, besides his natural sullenness and hardness 
of temper, is the near kinsman of Henry Darnley, and 
Ruthven has his own deep and dangerous plans. The 
Council, besides, speak of proofs by writ and word, of a 
casket with letters— of I know not what.” 

“Ah ! good Melville,” answered the Queen, “were I as 
sure of the even-handed integrity of my judges, as of my 
own innocence — and yet ” 

“Oh! pause, madam,” said Melville; “even innocence 
must sometimes for a season stoop to injurious blame. Be- 
sides, you are here ” 

He looked round and paused. 

Speak out, Melville,” said the Queen, “never one ap- 
proached my person who wished to work me evil ; and 
even this poor page, whom I have to-day seen for the first 
time in my life, I can trust safely with your communica- 
tion. 

Nay, madam,” answered Melville, “in.such emergence, 
and he being the bearer of Lord Seyton’s message, I will 
before him and these fair ladies, whose truth 
and fidelity I dispute not — I say I will venture to say, that 


THE ABBOT. 


243 


there are other modes besides that of open trial, by which 
deposed sovereigns often die ; and that, as Machiavel saith, 
there is but one step betwixt a king’s prison and his 
grave.” 

“ Oh ! were it but swift and easy for the body,” said the 
unfortunate Princess, “were it but a safe and happy change 
for the soul, the woman lives not that would take the step 
so soon as I — But, alas ! Melville, when we think of death, 
a thousand sins, which we have trod as worms beneath our 
feet, rise up against us as flaming serpents. Most injuri- 
ously do they accuse me of aiding Darnley’s death ; yet, 
blessed Lady ! I afforded too open occasion for the suspi- 
cion — I espoused Bothwell.” 

“Think not of that now, madam,” said Melville, “think 
rather of the immediate mode of saving yourself and son. 
Comply with the present unreasonable demands, and trust 
that better times will shortly arrive.” 

“ Madam,” said Roland Graeme, “ if it pleases you that 
I should do so, I will presently swim through the lake, if 
they refuse me other conveyance to the shore ; I will go to 
the courts successively of England, France, and Spain, and 
will show you have subscribed these vile instruments from 
no stronger impulse than the fear of death, and I will do 
battle against them that say otherwise.” 

The Queen turned her round, and with one of those 
sweet smiles which, during the era of life’s romance, over- 
pay every risk, held her hand toward Roland, but without 
speaking a word. He kneeled reverently, and kissed it, 
and Melville again resumed his plea. 

“ Madam,” he said, “time presses, and you must not let 
those boats, which I see they are even now preparing, put 
forth on the lake. Here are enough of witnesses— your 
ladies— this bold youth— myself, when it can serve your 
cause effectually, for I would not hastily stand committed 
in this matter — but even without me here is evidence 
enough to show, that you have yielded to the demands of 
the Council through force and fear, but from no sincere 
and unconstrained assent. Their boats are already manned 
Tor their return— oh ! permit your old servant to recall 
them.” 

“ Melville,” said the Queen, “ thou art an ancient court- 
ier— when didst thou ever know a Sovereign Prince recall 
to his presence subjects who had parted from him on such 
terms as those on which these envoys of the Council left 
us, and who yet were recalled without submission or apoh 


244 


THE ABBOT. 


ogy ? — Let it cost me both life and crown, I will not again 
command them to my presence.” 

“Alas! madam, that empty form should make a bar- 
rier ! If I rightly understand, you are not unwilling to 
listen to real and advantageous counsel — but your scruple 
is saved — I hear them returning to ask your final resolution. 
Oh ! take the advice of the noble Seyton, and you may 
once more command those who now usurp a triumph over 
you. But hush! I hear them in the vestibule.” 

As he concluded speaking, George Douglas opened the 
door of the apartment, and marshalled in the two noble 
envoys. 

“We come, madam,” said the Lord Ruthven, “to re- 
quest your answer to the proposal of the Council.” 

“ Your final answer,” said Lord Lindesay ; “ for with a 
refusal you must couple the certainty that you have pre- 
cipitated your fate, and renounced the last opportunity of 
making peace with God, and insuring your longer abode 
in the world.” 

“ My lords,” said Mary, with inexpressible grace and 
dignity, “ the evils we cannot resist we must submit to— I 
will subscribe these parchments with such liberty of choice 
as my condition permits me. Were I on yonder shore, with 
a fleet jennet and ten good and loyal knights around me, I 
would subscribe my sentence of eternal condemnation as 
soon as the resignation of my throne. But here, in the 
Castle of Lochleven, with deep water around me— and you, 
my lords, beside me, — I have no freedom of choice. — Give 
me the pen, Melville, and bear witness to what I do, and 
why I do it.” 

“ It is our hope your Grace will not suppose yourself com- 
pelled by any apprehensions from us,” said the Lord Ruth- 
ven, “ to execute what must be your own voluntary deed.” 

The Queen had already stooped toward the table, and 
p placed the parchment before her, with the pen between 
her fingers, ready for the important act of signature. 
But when Lord Ruthven had done speaking, she looked 
up, stopped short, and threw down the pen. “ If,” she 
said, I am expected to declare I give away my crown of > 
tree will, or otherwise than because I am compelled to re- 
nounce It by the threat of worse evils to myself and my 
subjects, I will not put my name to such an untruth — not 
to gain full possession of England, France, and Scotland ! 

all once my own, in possession, or by right.” 

Beware, madam,” said Lindesay, and, snatching hold 


THE ABBOT. 


245 


of the Queen’s arm with his own gauntleted hand, he 
pressed it in the rudeness of his passion, more closely, per- 
haps, than he was himself aware of, “ beware how you con- 
tend with those who are the stronger, and have the mas- 
tery of your fate ! ” 

He held his grasp on her arm, bending his eyes on her 
with a stern and intimidating look, till both Ruthven and 
Melville cried shame ; and Douglas, who had hitherto re- 
mained in a state of apparent apathy, had made a stride 
from the door, as if to interfere. The rude baron then 
quitted his hold, disguising the confusion which he really 
felt at having indulged his passion to such extent, 
under a sullen and contemptuous smile. 

The Queen immediately began, with an expression of 
pain, to bare the arm which he had grasped, by draw- 
ing up the sleeve of her gown, and it appeared that his 
gripe had left the purple marks of his iron fingers upon her 
flesh — “ My lord,” she said, “ as a knight and gentleman, 
you might have spared my frail arm so severe a proof that 
you have the greater strength on your side, and are resolved 
to use it — But I thank you for it — it is the most decisive 
token of the terms on which this day’s business is to rest. 
— I draw you to witness, both lords and ladies,” she said, 
showing the marks of the grasp on her arm, “ that I sub- 
scribe these instruments in obedience to the sign manual 
of my Lord of Lindesay, which you may see imprinted on 
mine arm.” * 

Lindesay would have spoken, but was restrained by his 
colleague Ruthven, who said to him, “ Peace, my lord. 
Let the Lady Mary of Scotland ascribe her signature to 
what she will, it is our business to procure it, and carry 
it to the Council. Should there be debate hereafter on 
the manner in which it was adhibited, there will be time 
enouQ^h for it.” 

Lindesay was silent accordingly, only muttering within 
his beard, “ I meant not to hurt her ; but I think women’s 
flesh be as tender as new fallen snow.” 

The Queen meanwhile subscribed the rolls of parch- 
ment with a hasty indifference, as if they had been matters 
of slight consequence, or of mere formality. When she 
had performed this painful task, she arose, and, having 
courtesied to the lords, was about to withdraw to her 
chamber.* Ruthven and Sir Robert Melville made, the 

* Note K. Resignation of Queen Mary. 


246 


THE ABBOT. 


first a formal reverence, the second an obeisance, in which 
his desire to acknowledge his symyathy was obviously 
checked by the fear of appearing in the eyes of his col- 
leagues too partial to his former mistress. But Lindesay 
stood motionless, even when they were preparing to with- 
draw. At length, as if moved by a sudden irA pulse, he 
walked round the table which had hitherto been betwixt 
them and the Queen, kneeled on one knee, took her hand, 
kissed it, let it fall, and arose — “ Lady,” he said, “thou art 
a noble creature, even though thou hast abused God’s 
choicest gifts. I pay that devotion to thy manliness of 
spirit, which I would not have paid to the power thou hast 
long undeservedly wielded — I kneel to Mary Stewart, not 
to the Queen.” 

“ The Queen and Mary Stewart pity thee alike, Linde- 
say,” said Mary — “ alike they pity, and they forgiv^e thee. 
An honored soldier hadst thou been by a king’s side — 
leagued with rebels, what art thou but a good blade in the 
hands of a ruffian? — Farewell, my Lord Ruthven, the 
smoother but the deeper traitor. — Farewell, Melville — 
Mayest thou find masters that can understand state policy 
better, and have the means to reward it more richly, than 
Mary Stewart. — Farewell, George of Douglas — make your 
respected granddame comprehend that we would be alone 
for the remainder of the day — God wot, we have need to 
collect our thoughts.” 

All bowed and withdrew ; but scarce had they entered 
the vestibule, ere Ruthven and Lindesay were at variance. 
“ Chide not with me, Ruthven,” Lindesay was heard to 
say, in answer to something more indistinctly urged by 
his colleague — “ Chide not with me, for I will not brook 
it ! You put the hangman’s office on me in this matter, 
and even the very hangman hath leave to ask some par- 
don of those on whom he does his office. I would I had 
as deep cause to be this lady’s friend as I have to be her 
enemy — thou shouldst see if \ spared limb and life in her 
quarrel.” 

“ Thou art a sweet minion,” said Ruthven, “ to fight a 
lady’s quarrel, and all for a brent brow and a tear in the eye ! 
Such toys have been out of thy thoughts this many a year.” 

“Do me right, Ruthven,” said Lindesay. “You are 
like a polished corselet of steel ; it shines more gaudily, 
but it is not a whit softer — nay, it is five times harder than 
a Glasgow breast-plate of hammered iron. Enough. We 
know each other.” 


THE ABBOT. 


247 


They descended the stairs, were heard to summon their 
boats, and the Queen signed to Roland Graeme to retire 
to the vestibule, and leave her with her female attendants. 


CHAPTER TWENTY-THIRD. 

Give me a morsel on the greensward rather, 

Coarse as you will the cooking — Let the fresh spring 
Bubble beside my napkin — and the free birds, 

Twittering and chirping, hop from bough to bough. 

To claim the crumbs I leave for perquisites — 

* Your prison feasts I like not. 

The Woodsman, a Drama. 

A RECESS in the vestibule was enlightened by a small 
window, at which Roland Graeme stationed himself to 
mark the departure of the lords. He could see their fol- 
lowers mustering on horseback under their respective 
banners — the western sun glancing on their corselets and 
steel caps as they moved to and fro, mounted or dis- 
mounted, at intervals. On the narrow space betwixt the 
castle and the water, the Lords Ruthven and Lindesay 
were already moving slowly to their boats, accompanied 
by the Lady of Lochleven, her grandson, and their princi- 
pal attendants. They took a ceremonious leave of each 
other, as Roland could discern by their gestures, and the 
boats put off from their landing-place ; the boatmen 
stretched to their oars, and they speedily diminished upon 
the eye of the idle gazer, who had no better employment 
than to watch their motions. Such seemed also the occu- 
pation of the Lady Lochleven and George Douglas, who, 
returning from the landing-place, looked frequently back 
to the boats, and at length stopped as if to observe their 
progress under the window at which Roland Graeme was 
stationed. — As they gazed on the lake, he could hear the 
lady distinctly say, “ And she- has bent her mind to save 
her life at the expense of her kingdom ? ” 

“ Her life, madam ! ” replied her son ; “ I know not who 
would dare to attempt it in the castle of my father. Had 
I dreamt that it v/as with such purpose that Lindesay 
insisted on bringing his followers hither, neither he nor 
they should have passed the iron gate of Lochleven 
Castle.” 

“I speak not of private slaughter, my son, but of open 


248 


THE ABBOT 


trial, condemnation, and execution ; for with such she has 
been threatened, and to such threats she has given way. 
Had she not more of the false Guisian blood than of the 
royal race of Scotland in her veins, slie liad bidden them 
defiance to their teeth— But it is ail of the same complex- 
ion, and meanness is the natural companion of profligacy. 
*— I am discharged, forsooth, from intruding on her gra- 
cious presence this evening. Go thou, my son, and render 
the usual service of the meal to this unqueened Queen.” 

“So please you, lady mother,” said Douglas, “I care 
not greatly to approach her presence.” 

“ Thou art right, my son ; and therefore I trust thy pru- 
dence, even because I have noted thy caution. She is like 
an isle on the ocean, surrounded with shelves and quick- 
sands ; its verdure fair and inviting to the eye, but the 
wreck of many a goodly vessel which hath approached it 
too rashly. But for thee, my son, I fear naught ; and we 
may not, with our honor, suffer her to eat without the 
attendance of one of us. She may die by the judgment of 
Heaven, or the fiend may have power over her in her de- 
spair ; and then we would be touched in honor to show, 
that in our house, and at our table, she had all fair play 
and fitting usage.” ^ ^ 

Here Roland was interrupted by a smart tap on the 
shoulders reminding him sharply of Adam Woodcock’s ad- 
venture of the preceding evening. He turned round, 
almost expecting to see the page of Saint Michael’s 
iiostelne. He saw, indeed, Catherine Seyton ; but she 
was in female attire, differing, no doubt, a great deal in 
shape and materials from that which she had worn when 
they first met, and becoming her birth as the daughter of a 
great baron, and her rank as the attendant on a princess. 

bo, fair page, ’ said she, “ eaves-dropping is one of your 
pagelike qualities, I presume.” 

Fair sister, ’ answered Roland, in the same tone “ if 
some friends of mine be as well acquainted with the rest 
of our mystery as they are with the arts of swearino- 
^yaggering, and switching, they need ask no page m 
Christendom for farther insight into his yocation.” 
u speech infer that you haye yourself 

switch since we last met, the 
probability whereof I nothing doubt, I profess, fair page, 

1 am at a loss to conjecture your meaning. But there 
ts no time to debate it now-tliey come wdth the ev^m 
ing meal. Be pleased. Sir Page, to do your duty.” 


7' HE ABBOT. 


249 


Four servants entered bearing dishes, preceded by the 
same stern old steward whom Roland had already seen, 
and followed by George Douglas, already mentioned as 
the grandson of the Lady of Lochleven, and who, acting 
as seneschal, represented, upon this occasion, his father, 
the Lord of the Castle. He entered with his arms folded 
on his bosom, and his looks bent on the ground. With 
the assistance of Roland Graeme, a table w^as suitably 
covered in the next or middle apartment, on which the 
domestics placed their burdens with great reverence, the 
steward and Douglas bending low when they had seen the 
table properly adorned, as if their royal prisoner had sat 
at the board in question. The door opened, and Douglas, 
raising his eyes hastily, cast them again on the earth, 
when he perceived it was only .the Lady Mary Fleming 
who entered. 

“•Her Grace,” she said, “will not eat to-night.” 

“ Let us hope she may be otherwise persuaded,” said 
Douglas ; “ meanwhile, madam, please to see our duty per- 
formed.” 

A servant presented bread and salt on a silver plate, and 
the old steward carved for Douglas a small morsel in suc- 
cession from each of the dishes presented, which he tasted, 
as was then the custom at the tables of princes, to which 
death was often suspected to find its way in the disguise 
of food. 

“The Queen wdll not then come forth to-night ?” said 
Douglas. 

“ She has so determined,” replied the lady. 

“ Our farther attendance then is unnecessary — we leave 
you to your supper, fair ladies, and wish you good even.” 

He retired slowly as he came, and with the same air of 
deep dejection, and was followed by the attendants be- 
longing to the castle. The two ladies sat down to their 
meal, and Roland Graeme, with ready alacrity, prepared 
to wait upon them. Catherine Seyton w’hispered to her 
companion, who replied with the question spoken in a low 
tone, but looking at the page— “ Is he of gentle blood and 
well nurtured ? ” 

The answer which she received seemed satisfactory, for 
she said to Roland, “ Sit down, young gentleman, and eat 
with vour sisters in captivity.” 

“ Permit me rather to perform my duty in attending 
them,” said Roland, anxious to show he was possessed of 
the high tone of deference prescribed by the rules of chiv- 


250 


THE ABBOT, 


airy toward the fair sex, and especially to dames and maid- 
ens of quality. 

“You will find, Sir Page,” said Catherine, “you will 
have little time allowed you for your meal ; waste it not 
in ceremony, or you may rue your politeness ere to-mor- 
row morning.” 

“Your speech is too free, maiden,” said the elderly lady ; 
“ the modesty of the youth may teach you more fitting 
fashions toward one whom to-day you have seen for the 
first time.” 

Catherine Seyton cast down her eyes, but not till she 
had given a single glance of inexpressible archness toward 
Roland, whom her more grave companion now addressed 
in a tone of protection. 

“ Regard her not, young gentleman — she knows little 
of the world, save the forms of a country nunnery — take 
thy place at the board-end, and refresh thyself after • thy 
journey.” 

Roland Graeme obeyed willingly, as it was the first food 
he had that day tasted ; for Lindesay and his followers 
seemed regardless of human wants. Yet, notwithstanding 
the sharpness of his appetite, a natural gallantry of dispo- 
sition, the desire of showing himself a well-nurtured gen- 
tleman, in all courtesies toward the fair sex, and, for aught 
I know, the pleasure of assisting Catherine Seyton, kept 
his attention awake, during the meal, to all those name- 
less acts of duty and service which gallants of that age 
were accustomed to render. He carved with neatness and 
decorum, and selected duly whatever was most delicate to 
place before the ladies. Ere they could form a wish, he 
sprung from the table, ready to comply with it — poured 
wine— tempered it with water— removed and exchanged 
trenchers, and performed the whole honors of the table, 
with an air at once of cheerful diligence, profound respect, 
and graceful promptitude. 

When he observed that they had finished eating he hast- 
ened to offer to the elder lady the silver ewer, basin, and 
napkin, with the ceremony and gravity which he would 
have used toward Mary herself. He next with the same 
decorum, having supplied the basin with fair water, pre- 
sented it to Catherine Seyton. Apparently, she was de- 
termined to disturb his self-possession if possible ; for, 
while in the act of bathing her hands, she contrived, as it 
were by accident, to flirt some drops of water upon the 
face of the assiduous assistant. But if such was her mis- 


THE ABBOT. 


25 


chievous purpose she was completely disappointed ; for 
Roland Graeme, internally piquing himselt on his self- 
command, neither laughed nor was discomposed ; and all 
that the maiden gained by her frolic was a severe rebuke 
from her companion, taxing her with mal-address and in- 
decorum. Catherine replied not, but sat pouting, some- 
thino- in the humor of a spoilt child, who watches the op- 
portunity of wreaking on some one or other its resentment 
for a deserved reprimand. 

The Lady Mary Fleming, in the meanwhile, was natu- 
rally well pleased with the exact and reverent observance 
of the pa?k and said to Catherine, after a favorable glance 
at Roland Graeme,— “ You might well say, Catherine, our 
companion in captivity was well born and gentle nurtured. 

I would not make him vain by my praise, but his services 
enable us to dispense with those which George 
condescends not to afford us, save when the Queen is her- 

“ Um^phT"'think hardly,” answered Catherine. “George 
Douglas is one of the most handsome gahants in Scot- 
land and ’tis pleasure to see him even still, when the gloom 
of Lochleven^Castle has shed the same 
him that it has done over everything else. When he was 
at Holyrood, who would have said the young spright y 
Georo-e Douglas would have been contented to play the 
locksman here in Lochleven, with no gayer amusement 
than that of turning the key on two or three helpless wom- 
en ?— a strange office for a knight of the Bleeding Heart 
-why does he not leave it tq his father or his brothers? 

“ Perhaps, like us, he has no choice, answered the Lady 
Fieming. But, Catherine, thou hast used thy brief space 
at c“urf well, to remember what George Douglas was 

'‘"‘"I ’used mine eyes, which I supposed was what I was 
desio-ned to do, and they were worth using there. When 
I was at the liunnery, they were very useless appurte- 
nances - and now I am at Lochleven, they are good for 
nothing, save to look over that eternal work of embroid- 

You speak thus, when you have been but a few brief 
hours amongst us— was this the maiden who would bye 
an^die in a^dungeon, might she but have permission to 

frSFre"™.,, m, )..n. ,.id 


252 


THE ABBOT. 


o 


my poor god-mother, to the gravest dame that ever had 
wise saws upon her ^tongue, and a double-starched ruff 
around her throat — you know I would not, Dame Mary 
Fleming, and it is putting shame on me to say otherwise.” 

“ She will challenge the other court lady,” thought Ro- 
land Graeme ; “ she will to a certainty fling down her glove, 
and, if Dame Mary Fleming hath but the soul to lift it, we 
may have a combat in the lists ! ” But the answer of Lady 
Mary Fleming was such as turns away wrath. 

“Thou art a good child,” she said, “my Catherine, and 
a faithful ; but Heaven pity him who shall have one day a 
creature so beautiful to delight him, and a thing so mis- 
chievous to torment him— thou art fit to drive twenty hus- 
bands stark mad.” 

“Nay,” said Catherine, resuming the full career of her 
careless good-humor, “he must be half-witted beforehand, 
that gives me such an opportunity. But I am glad you 
are not angry with me in sincerity,” casting herself as she 
spoke into the arms of her friend, and continuing with a 
tone of apologetic fondness, while she kissed her on either 
side of the face; “you know, my dear Fleming, that I 
have to contend both with my father’s lofty pride, and 
with my mother’s high spirit — God bless them ! they have 
left me these good qualities, having small portion to give 
besides, as times go — and so I am wilful and saucy ; but 
let me remain only a week in this castle, and, oh, my dear 
Fleming, my spirit will be as chastised and as humble as 
thine own.” 

Dame Mary Fleming’s sense of dignity, and love of form, 
could not resist this affectionate appeal. She kissed Cath- 
erine Seyton, in her turn affectionately ; while answering 
the last part of her speech, she said, “ Now Our Lady 
forbid, dear Catherine, that you should lose aught that is 
beseeming of what becomes so well your light heart and 
lively humor. Keep but your sharp wdt on this side of 
madness, and it cannot but be a blessing to us. But let me 
go, mad wench — I hear her Grace touch her silver call.” 
And, extricating herself from Catherine’s grasp, she went 
toward the door of Queen Mary’s apartment, from which 
was heard the low tone of a silver whistle, which, now 
only used by the boatswains in the navy, w^as then, for 
want of bells, the ordinary mode by which ladies, even of 
the very highest rank, summoned their domestics. When 
she had made two or three steps toward the door, how- 
ever, she turned back, and, advancing to the young couple 


THE ABBOT. 


253 


whom she left together, she said, in a very serious though 
a low tone, “ 1 trust it is impossible tliat we can, any of 
us, or in any circumstances, forget that, few as we are, we 
form the household of the Queen of Scotland ; and that in 
her calamity all boyish mirth and childish jesting can only 
serve to give a great triumph to her enemies, who have 
already found their account in objecting to her the light- 
ness of every idle folly that the young and the gay prac- 
tised in her court.” So saying, she left the apartment. 

Catherine Seyton seemed much struck with this remon- 
strance. She suffered herself to drop into the seat which 
she liad quitted when she went to embrace Dame Mary 
Fleming, and for some time rested her brow upon her 
hands ; while Roland Graeme looked at her earnestly, with 
a mixture of emotions which perhaps he himself could 
neither have analyzed nor explained. As she raised her 
face slowly from the posture to which a momentary feeling 
of self-rebuke had depressed it, her eyes encountered those 
of Roland, and became gradually animated with their usual 
spirit of malicious drollery, which not unnaturally excited 
a similar expression in those of the equally volatile page. 
They sat for the space of two minutes, each looking at the 
other with great seriousness on their features, until at 
length Catherine was the first to break silence. 

“ May I pray you, fair sir,” she began, very demurely, 
“ to tell me what you see in my face to arouse looks so ex- 
tremely sagacious and knowing as those with which it is 
your worship’s pleasure to honor me ? It would seem as 
there were some wonderful confidence and intimacy be- 
twixt us, fair sir, if one is to judge from your extremely 
cunning looks ; and so help me Our Lady, as I never saw 
you but twice in my life before.” 

“ And where were those happy occasions,” said Roland, 
“ if I may be bold enough to ask the question ?” 

“At the nunnery of Saint Catherine’s,” said the damsel, 
“in the first instance ; and, in the second, during the five 
minutes of a certain raid or foray which it was your pleas- 
ure to make into the lodging of my lord and father, Lord 
Seyton, from which, to my surprise, as probably to your 
own, you returned with a token of friendship and favor, 
instead of broken bones, which were the more probable 
reward of your intrusion, considering the prompt ire of 
the house of Seyton. I am deeply mortified,” she added, 
ironically, “ that your recollection should require refresh- 
ment on a subject so important ; and that my memory 


254 


THE ABBOT. 


should be stronger than yours on such an occasion istrulj 
humiliating.” 

“ Your own memory is not so exactly correct, fair mis- 
tress,” answered the page, “seeing you have forgijtren 
meeting the third, in the hostlery of St. Michael’s, when it 
pleased you to lay your switch across the face of my com- 
rade, in order, I warrant, to show that, in the house of Sey- 
ton, neither the prompt ire of its descendants, nor the use 
of the doublet and hose, are subject to Salic law, or con- 
fined to the use of the males.” 

“ Fair sir,” answered Catherine, looking at him with 
great steadiness and some surprise, “ unless your fair wits 
have forsaken you, I am at a loss what to conjecture of 
your meaning.” 

“ By my troth, fair mistress,” answered Roland, “ and 
were I as wise a warlock as Michael Scott, I could scarce 
riddle the dream you read me. Did I not see you last night 
in the hostlery of St. Michael’s ? Did you not bring me 
this sword, with command not to draw it save at the com- 
mand of my native and rightful Sovereign ? And have I 
not done as you required me? Or is the sword a piece of 
lath — my word a bulrush — my memory a dream — and my 
eyes good for naught — espials which corbies might pick 
out of my head ? ” 

“ And if your eyes serve you not more truly on other 
occasions than in your vision of St. Michael,” said Cath- 
erine, “ I know not, the pain apart, that the corbies would 
do you any great injury in the deprivation — But hark, the 
bell — hush, for God’s sake, we are interrupted ” 

The damsel was right ; for no sooner had the dull toll of 
the castle bell begun to resound through the vaulted apart- 
ment, than the door of the vestibule flew open, and the 
steward, with his severe countenance, his gold chain, and 
his white rod, entered the apartment, followed by the same 
train of domestics who had placed the dinner on the table, 
and who now, with the same ceremonious formality, began 
to remove it. 

The steward remained motionless ns some old picture, 
while the domestics did their office ; and when it was ac- 
complished, everything removed from the table, and the 
board itself taken from its tressels and disposed against the 
wall, he said aloud, without addressing any one in particu- 
lar, and somewhat in the tone of a herald reading a proc- 
lamation, “ My noble lady. Dame Margaret Erskine, by 
marriage Douglas, lets the Lady Mary of Scotland and her 


THE ABBOT. 


255 


attendants to wit, that a servant of the true evangele, her 
reverend chaplain, will to-night, as usual, expound, lecture, 
and catechise, according to the forms of the congregation 
of gospellers.” 

“ Hark you, my friend, Mr. Dryfesdale,” said Catherine, 

I understand this announcement is a nightly form of 
yours. Now, I pray you to remark, that the Lady Flem- 
ing and I — for I trust your insolent invitation concerns us 
only — have chosen Saint Peter’s pathway to Heaven, so I 
see no one whom your godly exhortation, catechise, or 
lecture, can benefit, excepting this poor page, who, being 
in Satan’s hand as well as yourself, had better worship with 
you than remain to cumber our better-advised devotions.” 

The page was well-nigh giving a round denial to the as- 
sertions which this speech implied, when, remembering 
what had passed betwixt him and the Regent, and seeing 
Catherine's finger raised in a monitory fashion, he felt him- 
self, as on former occasions at the Castle of Avenel, obliged 
to submit to the task of dissimulation, and followed Dryfes- 
dale down to the castle chapel, where he assisted in the 
devotions of the evening. 

The chaplain was named Elias Henderson. He was a 
man in the prime of life, and possessed of good natural 
parts, carefully improved by the best education which those 
times afforded To these qualities were added a faculty 
of close and terse reasoning ; and, at intervals, a flow of 
happy illustration and natural eloquence. The religious 
faith of Roland Graeme, as we have already had oppor- 
tunity to observe, rested on no secure basis, but was enter- 
tained rather in obedience to his grandmother’s behests, 
and his secret desire to contradict the chaplain of Avenel 
Castle, than from any fixed or steady reliance which he 
placed on the Romish creed. His ideas had been of late 
considerably enlarged by the scenes he had passed through ; 
and feeling that there was shame in not understanding 
something of those political disputes betwixt the professors 
of the ancient and of the reformed faith, he listened with 
more attention than it had hitherto been in his nature to 
yield on such occasions, to an animated discussion of some 
of the principal points of difference betwixt the churches. 
So passed away the first day in the Castle of Lochleven ; 
and those which followed it were, for some time, of a very 
monotonous and uniform tenor. 


256 


THE ABBOT, 


CHAPTER TWENTY-FOURTH. 

’Tis a weary life this 

Vaults overhead, and grates and bars around me, 

And my sad hours spent with as sad companions, 

Whose thoughts are brooding o’er their own mischances, 

Far, far too deeply to take part in mine. 

The Woodsman. 

The course of life to which Mary and her little retinue 
were doomed, was in the last degree secluded and lonely, 
varied only as the weather permitted or rendered impossi- 
ble the Queen's usual walk in the garden or on the battle- 
ments. The greater part of the morning she wrought with 
her ladies at those pieces of needlework, many of which 
still remain proofs of her indefatigable application. At 
such hours the page was permitted the freedom of the 
castle and islet ; nay, he was sometimes invited to attend 
George Douglas when he went a-sporting upon the lake, 
or on its margin ; opportunities of diversion which were 
only clouded by the remarkable melancholy which alw^ays 
seemed to brood on that gentleman’s brow, and to mark 
his whole demeanor — a sadness so profound, that Roland 
never observed him to smile, or to speak any word uncon- 
nected wdth the immediate object of their exercise. 

The most pleasant part of Roland’s day was the occa- 
sional space which he was permitted to pass in personal 
attendance on the Queen and her ladies, together with the 
regular dinner-time, w'hich he always spent wdth Dame 
Mary Fleming and Catherine Seyton. At these periods, 
he had frequent occasion to admire the lively spirit and 
inventive imagination of the latter damsel, who was un- 
wearied in her contrivances to amuse her mistress, and to 
banish, for a time at least, the melancholy which preyed 
on her bosom. She danced, she sung, she recited tales of 
ancient and modern times, with that heartfelt exertion of 
talent, of which the pleasure lies not in the vanity of dis- 
playing it to others, but in the enthusiastic consciousness 
that we possess it ourselves. And yet these high accom- 
plishments w’ere mixed with an air of rusticity and hare- 
brained vivacity, which seemed rather to belong to some 
village maid, the coquette of the ring around the Maypole, 
than to the high-bred descendant of an ancient baron. A 
touch of audacity, altogether short of effrontery, and far 


THE ABBOT. 


257 


less approaching to vulgarity, gave as it were a wildness 
to all that she did ; and Mary, while defending her from 
some of the occasional censures of her grave companion, 
compared her to a trained singing-bird escaped from a cage, 
which practises in all the luxuriance of freedom, and in 
full possession of the greenwood bough, the airs whicli it 
had learned during its earlier captivity. 

The moments which the page was permitted to pass in 
the presence of this fascinating creature danced, so rapidly 
away, that, brief as they were, they compensated the weary 
dulness of all the rest of the day. The space of indulgence^ 
however, was always brief, nor were any private interviews 
betwixt him and Catherine permitted, or even possible. 
Whether it were some special precaution respecting the 
Queen’s household, or whether it were her general ideas 
of propriety. Dame Fleming seemed particufarly attentive 
to prevent the young people from holding any separate 
correspondence together, and bestowed, for Catherine’s 
sole benefit in this matter, the full stock of prudence and 
experience which she had acquired, when mother of the 
Queen’s maidens of honor, and by which she had gained 
their hearty hatred. Casual meetings, however, could not 
be prevented, unless Catherine had been more desirous of 
shunning or Roland Graeme less anxious in watching for 
them. A smile, a gibe, a sarcasm, disarmed of its severity 
by the arch look with which it was accompanied, was all 
that time permitted to pass between them on such occa- 
sions. But such passing interviews neither afforded means 
nor opportunity to renew the discussion of the circum- 
stances attending their earlier acquaintance, nor to permit 
Roland to investigate more accurately the mysterious ap- 
parition of the page in the purple velvet cloak at the hos- 
tlery of Saint Michael’s. 

The winter months slipped heavily away, and spring was 
already advanced, when Roland Graeme observed a gradual 
change in the manners of his fellow-prisoners. Having no 
business of his own to attend to, and being, like those of 
his age, education, and degree, sufficiently curious con- 
cerning what passed around, he began by degrees to sus- 
pect, and finally to be convinced, that there was something 
in agitation among his companions in captivity to which 
they did not desire that he should be privy. Nay, he be- 
came almost certain that, by some means unintelligible to 
him, Queen Mary held correspondence beyond the walls 
and waters which surrounded her prison-house, and that 

17 


258 


THE ABBOT. 


she nourished some secret hope of deliverance or escape. 
In the conversations betwixt her and her attendants, at 
which he was necessarily present, the Queen could not al- 
ways avoid showing that she was acquainted with the events 
which were passing abroad in the world, and which he only 
heard through her report. He observed that she wrote 
more and worked less than had been her former custom, 
and that, as if desirous to lull suspicion asleep, she changed 
her manner toward the Lady Lochleven into one more 
gracious, and which seemed to express a resigned submis- 
sion to her lot. ‘‘They think I am blind,” he said to him- 
self, “and that I am unfit to be trusted because I am so 
young, or it may be because I was sent hither by the Re- 
gent. Well ! — be it so ! — they may be glad to confide in 
me in the long run ; and Catherine Seyton, for as saucy as 
she is, may find me as safe a confidant as that sullen Doug- 
las, whom she is always running after. It may be they are 
angry with me for listening to Master Elias Henderson ; 
but it was their own fault for sending me there ; and if the 
man speaks truth and good sense, and preaches only the 
word of God, he is as likely to be right as either Pope or 
Councils.” 

It is probable that in this last conjectbre Roland Graeme 
had hit upon the real cause why the ladies had not en- 
trusted him with their councils. He had of late had sev- 
eral conferences with Henderson on the subject of religion, 
and had given him to understand that he stood in need of 
his instructions, although he had not tliought there was 
either prudence or necessity for confessing that hitherto 
he had held the tenets of the Church of Rome. 

Elias Henderson, a keen propagator of the reformed 
faith, had sought the seclusion of Lochleven Castle with 
the express purpose and expectation of making converts 
from Rome amongst the domestics of the dethroned Queen, 
and confirming the faith of those who already held the 
Protestant doctrines. Perhaps his hopes soared a little 
higher, and he might nourish some expectation of a prose- 
lyte more distinguished in the person of the deposed Queen. 
But the pertinacity with which she and her female attend- 
ants refused to see or listen to him, rendered suph hope, 
if he nourished it, altogether abortive. 

The opportunity, therefore, of enlarging the religious 
information of Roland Graeme, and bringing him to a 
more due sense of his duties to Heaven, was hailed by the 
good man as a door opened by Providence for the salva- 


THF. ABBOT. 


259 


tion of a sinner. He dreamed not, indeed, that he was 
converting a Papist, but such was the ignorance which 
Roland displayed upon some material points of the re- 
formed doctrine, that Master Henderson, while praising 
his docility to the Lady Lochleven and her grandson, sel- 
dom failed to add, that his venerable brother, Henry 
Warden, must be now decayed in strength and in mind, 
since he found a catechumen of his flock so ill-grounded 
in the principles of his belief. For this, indeed, Roland 
Graeme thought it was unnecessary to assign the true rea- 
son, which was his having made it a point of honor to 
forget all that Henry Warden taught him, as soon as he 
was no longer compelled to read it over as a lesson re- 
quired by rote. The lessons of his new instructor, if not 
more impressively delivered, were received by a more 
willing ear, and a more awakened understanding, and the 
solitude of Lochleven Castle was favorable to graver 
thoughts than the page had hitherto entertained. He 
wavered yet, indeed, as one who was almost persuaded : 
but his attention to the chaplain’s instructions procured 
him favor even with the stern old dame herself ; and he 
was once or twice, but under great precaution, permitted 
to go to the neighboring village of Kinross, situated on 
the mainland, to execute some ordinary commission of his 
unfortunate mistress. 

For some time Roland Graeme might be considered 
as standing neuter betwixt the two parties who inhabited 
the water-girdled Tower of Lochleven ; but, as he rose in 
the opinion of the Lady of the Castle and her chaplain, he 
perceived, with great grief, that he lost ground in that of 
Mary and her female allies. 

He came gradually to be sensible that he was regarded 
as a spy upon their discourse, and that, instead of the ease 
with which they had formerly conversed in his presence, 
without suppressing any of the natural feelings of anger, 
of sorrow, or mirth, which the chance topic of the mo- 
ment happened to call forth, their talk was now guardedly 
restricted to the most indifferent subjects, and a studied re- 
serve observed even in their mode of treating these. This 
obvious want of confidence was accompanied with a corre- 
spondent change in their personal demeanor toward the 
unfortunate page. The Queen, who had at first treated 
him with marked courtesy, now scarce spoke to him, save 
to convey some necessary command for her service. The 
Lady Fleming restricted her notice to the most dry and 


THE ABBOT. 


2 So 

distant expressions of civility, and Catherine wSeyton be- 
came bitter in her pleasantries, and shy, cross, and pettish, 
in any intercourse they had together. What was yet more 
provoking, lie saw, or thought he saw, marks of intelli- 
gence betwixt George Douglas and the beautiful Cath- 
erine Seyton ; and, sharpened by jealousy, he wrought 
himself almost into a certainty, that the looks which they 
exchanged conveyed matters of deep and serious import. 
“No wonder,” he thought, “if, courted by the son of a 
proud and powerful baron, she can no longer spare a word 
or look to the poor fortuneless page.” 

In a word, Roland Graeme’s situation became truly dis- 
agreeable, and his heart naturally enough rebelled against 
the injustice of this treatment, which deprived him of 
the only comfort which he had received for submitting 
to a confinement in other respects irksome. He accused 
Queen Mary and Catherine Seyton (for concerning the 
opinion of Dame Fleming he was indifferent) of inconsist- 
ency in being displeased with him on account of the natu- 
ral consequences of an order of their own. Why did they 
send him to hear this overpowering preacher ? The Abbot 
Ambrosius, he recollected, understood the weakness of 
their Popish cause better when he enjoined him to repeat 
within his own mind aves, and credos, and paters, all the 
while old Henry Warden preached or lectured, that so he 
might secure himself against lending even a momentary 
ear to his heretical doctrine. “ But I will endure this life 
no longer,” said he to himself, manfully; “do they sup- 
pose 1 would betray my mistress, because I see cause to 
doubt of her religion ? — that would be a serving, as they 
say, the Devil for God’s sake. I will forth into the world 
— he that serves fair ladies may at least expect kind looks 
and kind words ; and I bear not the mind of a gentleman 
to submit to cold treatment and suspicion, and a life-long 
captivity besides. I will speak to George Douglas to- 
morrow when we go out a-fishing.” 

A sleepless night was spent in agitating this magnani- 
mous resolution, and he arose in the morning not perfectly 
decided in his own mind whether he should abide by it or 
not. It happened that he was summoned by the Queen at 
an unusual hour, and just as he was about to go out with 
George Douglas. He went to attend her commands in the 
garden ; but, as he had his angling-rod in his hand, the 
circumstance announced his previous intention, and the 
Queen, turning to the Lady Fleming, said, “Catherine 


THE ABBOT. 


261 


must devise some other amusement for us, ma bonne amie 
our discreet page has already made his party for the day’s 
pleasure.” 

“ I said from the beginning,” answered the Lady Flem< 
ing, “ that your Grace ought not to rely on being favored 
with the company of a youth who has so many Huguenot 
acquaintances, and has the means of amusing himself far 
more agreeably than with us.” 

“ I wish,” said Catherine, her animated features redden- 
ing with mortification, “ that his friends would sail away 
with him for good, and bring us in return a page (if such a 
thing can be found) faithful to his Queen and to his relig- 
ion.” 

“ One part of your wishes maybe granted, madam,” said 
•Roland Graeme, unable any longer to restrain-his sense of 
the treatment which he received on all sides ; and he was 
about to add, “ I heartily wish you a companion in my 
room, if such can be found, who is capable of enduring 
women’s caprices without going distracted.” Luckily, he 
recollected the remorse which he had felt at having given 
way to the vivacity of his temper upon a similar occasion ; 
and, closing his lips, imprisoned, until it died on his tongue, 
a reproach so misbecoming the presence of majesty. 

‘'Why do you remain there,” said the Queen, “ as if you 
were rooted to the parterre?” 

“ I but attend your Grace’s commands,” said the page. 

“ I have none to give you — Begone, sir ! ” 

As he left the garden to go to the boat, he distinctly 
heard Mary upbraid one of her attendants in these words : 
“You see to what you have exposed us ! ” 

This brief scene at once determined Roland Graeme’s 
resolution to quit the castle, if it were possible, and to im- 
part his resolution to George Douglas without loss of 
time. That gentleman, in his usual mood of silence, sat 
in the stern of the little skiff which they used on such 
occasions, trimming his fishing-tackle, and, from time to 
time, indicating by signs to Graeme, who pulled the oars, 
which way he should row. When they were a furlong or 
two from the castle, Roland rested on the oars, and ad- 
dressed his companion somewhat abruptly — “ I have some- 
thing of importance to say to you, under your pleasure, 
fair sir.” 

The pensive melancholy of Douglas’s countenance at 
once gave way to the eager, keen, and startled look of one 
who expects to hear something of deep and alarming import. 


262 


THE ABB07\ 


“ I am wearied to the very death of this Castle of Loch- 
leven,” continued Roland. 

Is that all ? ” said Douglas ; “ I know none of its in- 
habitants who are much better pleased with it.” 

“ Ay, but I am neither a native of the house, nor a pris- 
oner m it, and so I may reasonably desire to leave it.” 

“You might desire to quit it with equal reason,” an- 
swered Douglas, “ if you were both the one and the other.” 

“ But,” said Roland Graeme, “ I am not only tired of 
living in Lochleven Castle, but I am determined to quit it.” 

“ That is a resolution more easily taken than executed,” 
replied Douglas. 

“Not if yourself, sir, and your L*ady Mother, choose to 
consent,” answered the page. 

“ You mistake the matter, Roland,” said Douglas ; “ you 
will find that the consent of two other persons is equally 
essential — that of the Lady Mary your mistress, and that 
of my uncle the Regent, who placed you about her person, 
and who will not think it proper that she should change 
her attendants so soon.” 

“And must I then remain whether I will or no?” de- 
manded the page, somewhat appalled at a view of the sub- 
ject which would have occurred sooner to a person of 
more experience. 

“At least,” said George Douglas, “you must will to 
remqin till my uncle consents to dismiss you.” 

“Frankly,” said the page, “and speaking to you as a 
gentleman who is incapable of betraying me, I wull confess 
that if I thought myself a prisoner here, neither walls nor 
water should confine me long.” 

“Frankly,” said Douglas, “ I could not much blame you 
for the attempt ; yet, for all that, my father, or uncle, or 
the earl, or any of my brothers, or in short any of the 
king’s lords into whose hands you fell, would in such a case 
hang you like a dog, or like a sentinel who deserts his 
post ; and I promise you that you will hardly escape them. 
But row toward Saint Serf’s Island — there is a breeze from 
the west, and we shall have sport, keeping to windward of 
the isle, where the ripple is strongest. We will speak 
more of what you have mentioned when we have had an 
hour’s sport.” 

Their fishing was successful, though never did two anglers 
pursue even that silent and unsocial pleasure with less of 
verbal intercourse. 

When their time was expired, Douglas took the oars in 


77 //: ABBOT, 


his turn, and by his order Roland Graeme steered the boat, 
directing her course upon the landing-place at the castle. 
But he also stopped in the midst of his course, and, look- 
ing around him, said to Graeme, “There is a thing which 
I could mention to thee ; but it is so deep a secret, that 
even here, surrounded as we are by sea and sky, without 
the possibility of a listener, I cannot prevail on myself to 
speak it out.” 

“ Better leave it unspoken, sir,” answered Roland Graeme, 
“ if you doubt the honor of him who alone can hear it.” 

“ I doubt not your honor,” replied George Douglas ; 
“ but you are young, imprudent, and changeful.” 

“ Young,” said Roland, “ I am, and it maybe imprudent 
— but who hath informed you that I am changeful ? ” 

“ One that knows you, perhaps, better than you know 
yourself,” replied Douglas. 

“ I suppose you mean Catherine Seyton,” said the page, 
his heart rising as he spoke ; “ but she is herself fifty times 
more variable in her humor than the very water which we 
are floating upon.” 

“ My young acquaintance,” said Douglas, “ I pray you 
to remember that Catherine Seyton is a lady of blood and 
birth, and must not be lightly spoken of.” 

“Master George of Douglas,” said Graeme, “as that 
speech seemed to be made under the warrant of something 
like a threat, I pray you to observe, that I value not the 
threat at the estimation of a fin of one of these dead trouts ; 
and, moreover, I would have you to know tiiat the cham- 
pion who undertakes the defence of every lady of blood 
and birthj whom men accuse of change of faith and of 
fashion, is like to have enough of work on his hands.” 

“ Go to,” said the Seneschal, but in a tone of good-humor ; 
“ thou art a foolish boy, unfit to deal with any matter more 
serious than the casting of a net, or the flying of a hawk.” 

“If your secret concerns Catherine Seyton,” said the 
page, “ I care not for it, and so you may tell her if you 
will. I wot she can shape you opportunity to speak with 
her, as she has ere now.” 

The flush which passed over Douglas’s face made the 
page aware that he had alighted on a truth, when he was, 
in fact, speaking at random ; and the feeling that he had 
done so was like striking a dagger into his own heart. His 
companion, without farther answer, resumed the oars, and 
pulled lustily till they arrived at the island and the castle, 
d'he servants received the produce of their spoil, and 


264 


THE ABBOT. 


the two fishers, turning from each other in silence, went 
each to his several apartment. 

Roland Graeme had spent about an hour in grumbling 
against Catherine Seyton, the Queen, the Regent, and the 
whole house of Lochleven, with George Douglas at the head 
of it, when the time approached that his duty called him 
to attend the meal of Queen Mary. As he arranged his 
dress for this purpose, he grudged the trouble which, on 
similar occasions, he used, with boyish foppery, to con- 
sider as one of the most important duties of his day ; and 
when he went to take his place behind the chair of the 
Queen, it was with an air of offended dignity, which could 
not escape her observation, and probably appeared to her 
ridiculous enough, for she whispered something in French 
to her ladies, at which the Lady Fleming laughed, and 
Catherine appeared half diverted and half disconcerted. 
This pleasantry, of which the subject was concealed from 
him, the unfortunate page received, of course, as a new of- 
fence, and called an additional degree of sullen dignity into 
his mien, which might have exposed him to farther rail- 
lery, but that Mary appeared disposed to make allowance 
for and compassionate his feelings. 

With that peculiar tact and delicacy which no woman 
possessed in greater perfection, she began to soothe by 
degrees the vexed spirit of her magnanimous attendant. 
The excellence of the fish which he had taken in his expe- 
dition, the high flavor and beautiful red color of the trouts 
which have long given distinction to the lake, led her first 
to express her thanks to her attendant for so agreeable an 
addition to her table, especially upon a jotir de jeune ; and 
then brought on inquiries into the place where the fish had 
been taken, their size, their peculiarities, the times when 
they were in season, and a comparison between the Loch- 
leven trouts and those which are found in the lakes and 
r\yers of the south of Scotland. The ill-humor of Roland 
Graeme was never of an obstinate character. It rolled 
away like mist before the sun, and he was easily engaged 
in a keen and animated dissertation about Lochleven trout, 
and sea trout, and river trout, and bull trout, and char, 
which never rise to a fly, and parr, which some suppose 
infant salmon, and herlings^ which frequent the Nith, and 
vendisses, which are only found in the Castle-Loch of Locli- 
maben ; and he was hurrying on with the eager impetu- 
osity and entliusiasm of a young sportsman, when he ob- 
served that the smile with which the Queen at first listened 


THE ABBOT. 


265 


to him died languidly away, and that, in spite of her eiforts to 
suppress them, tears rose to her eyes. He stopped suddenly 
short, and, distressed in his turn, asked, “ If he had had the 
misfortune unwittingly to give displeasure to her Grace ? ” 

“No, my poor boy,” replied the Queen ; “but as you 
numbered up the lakes and rivers of my kingdom, imagina- 
tion cheated me, as it will do, and snatched me from these 
dreary walls, away to the romantic streams of Nithsdale, 
and the royal towers of Lochmaben. — O land which my 
fathers have so long ruled ! of the pleasures which you ex- 
tend so freely your Queen is now deprived, and the 
poorest beggar, who may wander free from one landward 
town to another, would scorn to change fates with Mary of 
Scotland ! ” 

“Your Highness,” said the Lady Fleming, “will do well 
to withdraw.” 

“ Come with me, then, Fleming,” said the Queen ; “ I 
would not burden hearts so young as these are with the 
sight of my sorrows.” 

She accompanied these words with a look of melancholy 
compassion toward Roland and Catherine, who were now 
left alone together in the apartment. 

The page found his situation not a little embarrassing ; 
for, as every reader has experienced who may have chanced 
to be in such a situation, it is extremely difficult to main- 
tain the full dignity of an offended person in the presence 
of a beautiful girl, whatever reason we may have for being 
angry with her. Catherine Seyton, on her part, sat still, 
like a lingering ghost, which, conscious of the awe which 
its presence imposes, is charitably disposed to give the 
poor confused mortal whom it visits, time to recover his 
senses, and comply with the grand rule of demonology by 
speaking first. But as Roland seemed in no hurry to avail 
himself of her condescension, she carried it a step farther, 
and herself opened the conversation. 

“ I pray you, fair sir, if it may be permitted me to dis- 
turb your august reverie by a question so simple what 
may have become of your rosary ?” ^ i ^ 

“ It is lost, madam — lost some time since,” said Roland, 
partly embarrassed and partly indignant. 

“And may I ask further, sir,” said Catherine, “why you 
have not replaced it with another ? I have half a mind,’ 
she said, taking from her pocket a string of ebony beads 
adorned with gold, “ to bestow one upon you, to keep for 
my sake, just to remind you of former acquaintance.” 


266 


THE ABBOT. 


There was a little tremulous accent in the tone with 
which these words were delivered, which at once put to 
flight Roland Graeme’s resentment, and brought him to 
Catherine’s side ; but she instantly resumed the bold and 
firm accent which was more familiar to her. “ I did not 
bid you,” she said, “come and sit so close to me ; for the 
acquaintance I spoke of has been stiff and cold, dead and 
buried, for this many a day.” 

“ Now Fleaven forbid !” said the page; “ it has only slept, 
and now that you desire it should awake, fair Catherine, 
believe me that a pledge of your returning favor” 

“Nay, nay,” said Catherine, withholding the rosary, to- 
ward which, as he spoke, he extended his hand, “ I have 
changed my mind on better reflection. What should a 
heretic do with these holy beads, that have been blessed 
by the father of the church himself ? ” 

Roland winced grievously, for he saw plainly which way 
the discourse was now likely to tend, and felt that it must 
at all events be embarrassing. “ Nay, but,” he said, “ it 
was as a token of your own regard that you offered them.” 

“Ay, fair sir, but that regard attended the faithful sub- 
ject, the loyal and pious Catholic, the individual who was 
so solemnly devoted at the same time with myself to the 
same grand duty; which, you must now understand, was 
to serve the church and Queen. To such a person, if you 
ever heard of him, was my regard due, and not to him who 
associates with heretics and is about to become a rene- 
gade.” 

“ I should scarce believe, fair mistress,” said Roland, in- 
dignantly, “ that the vane of your favor turned only to a 
Catholic wind, considering that it points so plainly to 
George Douglas, who, 1 think, is both kingsman and 
Protestant.” 

“ Think better of George Douglas,” said Catherine, “than 

to believe ” and then checking herself, as if she had 

spoken too much, she went on : “ I assure you, fair Master 
Roland, that all who wish you well are sorry for you.” 

“Their number is very few, I believe,” answered Roland ; 

and their sorrow, if they feel any, not deeper than ten 
minutes’ time will cure.” 

“They are more numerous, and think more deeply con- 
cerning you than you seem to be aware,” answered Cath- 
eiine. “But perhaps tliey think wrong. You are the best 
judge in your own affairs ; and if you prefer gold and 
church lands to honor and loyalty, and the faith of your 


THE ABBOT. 


267 


fathers, why should you be hampered in conscience more 
than others ? ” 

“May Heaven bear witness for me,” said Roland, “that 
if I entertain any difference of opinion — that is, if I nour- 
ish any doubts in point of religion, they have been adopted 
on the conviction of my own mind, and the suggestion of 
my own conscience ! ” 

“Ay, ay, yourconscience— your conscience ?” repeated she 
with satiric emphasis : “your conscience is the scape-goat ; 
I warrant it an able one — it will bear the burden of one of 
the best manors of the Abbey of Saint Mary of Kenna- 
quhair, lately forfeited to our noble Lord the King, by the 
Abbot and community tliereof, for the liigh crime of fidel- 
ity to their religious vows, and now to be granted by the 
High and Mighty Traitor, and so forth, James Earl of 
Murray, to the good squire of dames Roland Graeme, for 
his loyal and faithful service as under-espial, and deputy- 
turnkey, for securing the person of his lawful sovereign. 
Queen Mary.” 

“You misconstrue me cruelly,” said the page; “yes, 
Catherine, most cruelly — God knows I would protect this 
poor lady at the risk of my life, or with my life ; but what 
can I do — what can any one do for her ? ” 

“ Much may be done — enough may be done — all may be 
done — if men will be but true and lionorable, as Scottish 
men were in the days of Bruce and Wallace. Oh, Roland, 
from what an enterprise you are now withdrawing your 
heart and hand through mert fickleness and coldness of 
spirit ! ” 

“ How can I withdraw,” said Roland, “ from an enter- 
prise which has never been communicated to me ? Has 
the Queen, or have you, or has any one, communicated 
with me upon anything for her service which I have re- 
fused ? Or have you not, all of you, held me at such dis- 
tance from your counsels, as if 1 were the most faithless 
spy since the days of Ganeloii ? ” * 

“And who,” said Catherine Seyton, “would trust the 
sw’orn friend, and pupil, and companion, of the heretic 
preacher Henderson ? ay, a proper tutor you have chosen, 
instead of the excellent Ambrosiiis, wLo is now^ turned out 
of house and homestead, if indeed he is not languishing in a 
dungeon, for withstanding the tyranny of Morton, to wiiose 

* Gan, Gano, or Ganelon, of Mayence, is in the Romances on the sub- 
ject of Charlemagne and his Paladins, always represented as the traitor by 
whom the Christian champions are betrayed. 


268 


THE ABBOT. 


brother the temporalities of that noble house of God have 
been gifted away by the Regent.” 

Is" it possible ? ” said the page ; and is the excellent 
Father Ambrose in such distress ?” 

“ He would account the news of your falling away from 
the faith of your fathers,” answered Catherine, “ a worse 
mishap than aught that tyranny can inflict on himself.” 

“ But why,” said Roland, very much moved, “ why should 
you suppose that — that — that it is with me as you say?” 

“ Do you yourself deny it ? ” replied Catherine ; “ do you 
not admit that you have drunk the poison which you should 
have dashed from your lips ? Do you deny that it now 
ferments in your veins, if it has not altogether corrupted 
the springs of life ? Do you deny that you have your 
doubts, as you proudly term them, respecting what popes 
and councils have declared it unlawful to doubt of? Is 
not your faith wavering, if not overthrown ? Does not the 
heretic preacher boast his conquest ? Does not the her- 
etic woman of this prison-house hold up thy example to 
others ? Do not the Queen and the Lady Fleming believe 
in thy falling away ? And is there any except one — yes, I 
will speak it out, and think as lightly as you please of my 
good-will — is there one except myself that holds even a 
lingering hope that you may yet prove what we once all 
believed of you ? ” 

“ I know not,” said our poor page, much embarrassed 
by the view which was thus presented to him of the con- 
duct he was expected to pui^ue, and by a person in whom 
he was not the less interested that so long a residence in 
Lochleven Castle, with no object so likely to attract his 
undivided attention, had taken place since they had first 
met — “ I know not what you expect of me, or fear from me. 
I was sent hither to attend Queen Mary, and to her I ac- 
knowledge the duty of a servant through life and death. 
If any one had expected service of another kind, I was not 
the party to render it. I neither avow nor disclaim the 
doctrines of the reformed church. Will you have the 
truth? It seems to me that the profligacy of the Catholic 
clergy has brought this judgment on their own heads, and, 
for aught I know, it may be for their reformation. But, 
for betraying this unhappy Queen, God knows I am guilt- 
less of the thought. Did 1 even believe worse of her than 
as her servant I wish — as her subject I dare to do — I would 
not betray her— far from it— I would aid her in aught 
which could tend to a fair trial of her cause.” 


THE ABB07\ 


269 




“ Enough ! enough ! ” answered Catherine, clasping her 
hands together ; “ then thou wilt not desert us if any 
means are presented by which, placing our Royal Mistress 
at freedom, this case may be honestly tried betwixt her 
and her rebellious subjects ?” 

“Nay — but fair Catherine,” replied the page, “hear 
but what the Lord of Murray said when he sent me 
hither.” 

“ Hear but what the devil said,” replied the maiden, 
“rather than what a false subject, a false brother, a false 
counsellor, a false friend, said ! A man raised from a 
petty pensioner on the crown’s bounty to be the coun- 
sellor of majesty, and the prime distributor of the bounties 
of the state ; one with whom rank, fortune, title, conse- 
quence, and power, all grew up like a mushroom, by the 
mere warm good-will of the sister, whom, in requital, he 
hath mewed up in this place of melancholy seclusion — 
whom, in fatherly requital, he has deposed, and whom, if 
he dare, he would murder ! ” 

“ I think not so ill of the Earl of Murray,” said Roland 
Graeme ; “and sooth to speak,” he added, with a smile, 
“ it would require some bribe to make me embrace, with 
firm and desperate resolution, either one side or the 
other.” 

“ Nay, if that is all,” replied Catherine Seyton, in a tone 
of enthusiasm, “you shall be guerdoned with prayer from 
oppressed subjects — from dispossessed clergy — from in- 
sulted nobles — with immortal praise by future ages — with 
eager gratitude by the present — with fame on earth, and 
with felicity in heaven! \^our country will thank you — 
your Queen will be debtor to you — you will achieve at once 
the highest from the lowest degree in chivalry— all men will 
honor, all women will love you— and I, sworn with you 
so early to the accomplishment of Queen Mary’s freedom, 
— yes, I will — love you better than — ever sister loved 
brother ! ” 

“ Say on — say on ! ” whispered Roland, kneeling on one 
knee, and taking her hand, which, in the warmth of ex- 
hortation, Catherine held toward him. 

“Nay,” said she, pausing, “I have already said too 
much — far too much, if I prevail not with you — far too 
little if I do. But I prevail,” she continued, seeing that 
the countenance of the youth she addressed returned the 
enthusiasm of her own— “ I prevail ; or rather the good 
cause prevails through its own strength— thus I devote 


THE ABBOT. 


270 


% 


thee to it.” And, as she spoke, she approached her finger 
to the brow of the astonished youth, and, without touching 
it, signed the cross over his forehead — stooped her face 
toward him, and seemed to kiss the empty space in which 
she had traced the symbol ; then starting up, and extri- 
cating herself from his grasp, darted into the Queen’s 
apartment. 

Roland Graeme remained as the enthusiastic maiden 
had left him, kneeling on one knee, with breath withheld, 
and with eyes fixed upon the space which the fairy form of 
Catherine Seyton had so lately occupied. If his thoughts 
were not of unmixed delight, they at least partook of that 
thrilling and intoxicating, though mingled sense of pain 
and pleasure, the most overpowering which life offers in 
its blended cup. He rose and retired slowly ; and al- 
though the chaplain, Mr. Henderson, preached on that 
evening his best sermon against the errors of Popery, I 
would not engage that he was followed accurately through 
the train of his reasoning by the young proselyte, with a 
view to whose especial benefit he had handled the subject. 


CHAPTER TWENTY-FIFTH. 


And when Love’s torch hath set the heart in flame, 
Comes Seignor Reason with his saws and cautions, 
Giving such aid as the old .gray-beard Sexton, 

Who from the church-vault drags his crazy engine. 
To ply its dribbling ineffectual .streamlet 
Against a conflagration. 


Old Play. 


In a musing mood, Roland Graeme upon the ensuing 
morning betook himself to the battlements of the castle^ 
as a spot where he might indulge the course of his thick- 
coming fancies with least chance of interruption. But his 
place of retirement was in the present case ill chosen, for 
he was presently joined by Mr. Elias Henderson. 

“ I sought you, young man,” said the preacher, “having 
to speak of something which concerns you nearly.” 

The page had no pretence for avoiding the conference 
which the chaplain thus offered, though he felt that it 
might prove an embarrassing one. 

In teaching thee, as far as my feeble knowledge hath 
permitted, thy duty toward God,” said the chaplain, “there 


THE ABBOT. 


271 


are particulars of your duty toward man upon which I was 
unwilling long or much to insist. You are here in the 
service of a lady, honorable as touching her birth, deserv- 
ing of all compassion as respects her misfortunes, and 
garnished with even but too many of those outward quali- 
ties which win men’s regard and affection. Have you ever 
considered your regard to this Lady Mary of Scotland in 
its true light and bearing?” 

“ I trust, reverend sir,” replied Roland Graeme, “that I 
am well aware of the duties a servant in my condition owes 
to his royal mistress, especially in her lowly and distressed 
condition.” 

“ True,” answered the preacher ; “ but it is even that 
honest feeling which may, in the Lady Mary’s case, carry 
thee into great crime and treachery.” 

“ How so, reverend sir ? ’’ replied the page ; “ I profess 
I understand you not.” 

“ I speak to you not of the crimes of this ill-advised 
lady,” said the preacher ; “ they are not subjects for the 
ears of her sworn servant. But it is enough to say that 
this unhappy person hath rejected more offers of grace, 
more hopes of glory, than ever were held out to earthly 
princes ; and that she is now, her day of favor being 
passed, sequestered in this lonely castle for the common 
weal of the people of Scotland, and it may be for the benefit 
of her own soul.” 

“Reverend sir,” said Roland, somewhat impatiently, 
“ I am but too well aware that my unfortunate mistress is 
imprisoned, since I have the misfortune to share in her 
restraint myself — of which, to speak sooth, I am heartily 
weary.” 

“It is even of that which I am about to speak,” said the 
chaplain, mildly ; “ but first, my good Roland, look forth 
on the pleasant prospect of yonder cultivated plain. You 
see, where the smoke arises, yonder village standing half 
hidden by the trees, and you know it to be the dwelling- 
place of peace and industry. From space to space, each 
by the side of its own stream, you see the gray towers of 
barons, with cottages interspersed ; and you know that 
they also, with their households, are now living in unity ; 
the lance hung upon the wall, and the sword resting in its 
sheath. You see, too, more than one fair church, where 
the pure waters of life are offered to the thirsty, and where 
the hungry are refreshed with spiriti^l food. What would 
he deserve who should bring fire and slaughter into so 


272 


THE ABBOT, 


fair and happy a scene — who should bare the swords of 
the gentry and turn them against each other — who should 
give tower and cottage to the flames, and slake the embers 
with the blood of the indwellers ? W4iat would he deserve 
who should lift up again that ancient Dagon of Super- 
stition, whom the worthies of the time have beaten down, 
and who should once more make the churches of God the 
high places of Baal ? ” 

“ You have limned a frightful picture* reverend sir,” said 
Roland Graeme ; “yet I guess not whom you would charge 
with the purpose of effecting a change so horrible.” 

“ God forbid,” replied the preacher, “ that I should say 
to thee. Thou art the man. Yet beware, Roland Graeme, 
that thou, in serving thy mistress, hold fast the still higher 
service which thou owest to the peace of thy country, and 
the prosperity of her inhabitants ; else, Roland Graeme, 
thou mayest be the very man upon whose head will fall 
the curses and assured punishment due to such work. If 
thou art won by the song of these sirens to aid that un- 
happy lady’s escape from this place of penitence and se- 
curity, it is over with the peace of Scotland’s cottages, and 
with the prosperity of her palaces — and the babe unborn 
shall curse the name of the man who gave inlet to the dis- 
order which will follow the war betwixt the mother and the 
son.” 

“I know of no such plan, reverend sir,” answered the 
page, “and therefore can aid none such. — My duty toward 
the Queen has been simply that of an attendant ; it is a 
task of which, at times, I would willingly have been freed ; 
nevertheless ” 

“ It is to prepare thee for the enjoyment of something 
more of liberty,” said the preacher, “that I have endeav- 
ored to impress upon you the deep responsibility under 
which your office must be discharged. George Douglas 
hath told the Lady Lochleven that you are weary of this 
service, and my intercession hath partly determined her 
good ladyship, that, as your discharge cannot be granted, 
you shall, instead, be employed in certain commissions on 
the mainland, which have hitherto been discharged by other 
persons of confidence. Wherefore, come with me to the 
lady, for even to-day such duty will be imposed on you.” 

“ I trust you will hold me excused, reverend sir,” said 
the page, who felt that an increase of confidence on the 
part of the Lady of tj^e Castle and her family would render 
his situation in a moral view doubly embarrassing, “one 


THE ABBOT. 


273 


cannot serve two masters — and I much fear that my mis- 
tress will not hold me excused for taking employment 
under another.” 

“ Fear not that,” said the preacher ; “ her consent shall 
be asked and obtained. I fear she will yield it but too 
easily, as hoping to avail herself of your agency to main- 
tain correspondence with her friends, as those falsely call 
themselves, who would make her name the watchword for 
civil war.” 

“And thus,” said the page, “ I shall be exposed to sus- 
picion on all sides ; for my mistress will consider me as a 
spy placed on her by her enemies, seeing me so far trusted 
by them ; and the Lady Lochleven will never cease to sus- 
pect the possibility of my betraying her, because circum- 
stances put it into my power to do so — I would rather 
remain as I am.” 

There followed a pause of one or two minutes, during 
which Henderson looked steadily in Roland’s countenance, 
as if desirous to ascertain whether there was not more in 
the answer than the precise words seemed to imply. He 
failed in this point, however ; for Roland, bred a page from 
childhood, knew howto assume a sullen pettish cast of coun- 
tenance, well enough calculated to hide all internal emo- 
tions. 

“I understand thee not, Roland,” said the preacher, “or 
rather thou thinkest on this matter more deeply than I 
apprehended to be in thy nature. Methought, the delight 
of going on shore with thy bow, or thy gun, or thy angling- 
rod, would have borne away all other feelings.” 

“And so it would,” replied Roland, who perceived the 
danger of suffering Henderson’s half-raised suspicions to 
become fully awake, — “I would have thought of nothing 
but the gun and the oar, and the wild water-fowl that 
tempt me by sailing among the sedges yonder so far out 
of flight-shot, had you not spoken of my going on shore 
as what was to occasion burning of town and tower, 
the downfall of the evangele, and the upsetting of the 
mass.” 

“ Follow me, then,” said Henderson, “and we will seek 
the Lady Lochleven.” 

They found her at breakfast with her grandson George 
Douglas.— “ Peace be with your ladyship!” said the 
preacher, bowing to his patroness ; “ Roland Graeme 
awaits your order.” 

“Young man,” said the lady, “our chaplain hath war- 
18 


274 


77//S. ABB07\ 


ranted for thy fidelity, and we are determined to give you 
certain errands to do for us in our town of Kinross. 

“Not by my advice,” said Douglas, coldly. 

“ I said not that it was,” answered the lady, something 
sharply. “The mother of thy father may, I should think, 
be old* enough to judge for herself in a matter so simple. 
—Thou wilt take the skiff, Roland, and two of my people, 
whom Dryfesdale or Randal will order out, and fetch off 
certain stuff of plate and hangings, which should last night 
be lodged at Kinross by the wains from Edinburgh.” 

“ And give this packet,” said George Douglas, “ to a 
servant of ours, whom you will find in waiting there. — It 
is the report to my father,” he added, looking toward his 
grandmother, who acquiesced by bending her head. 

“ I have already mentioned to Master Henderson,” said 
Roland Graeme, “ that as my duty requires my attendance 
on the Queen, her Grace’s permission for my journey 
ought to ‘be obtained before I can undertake your commis- 
sion.” 

“ Look to it, my son,” said the old lady, “ the scruple of 
the youth is honorable.” 

“Craving your pardon, madam, I have no wish to force 
myself on her presence thus early,” said Douglas, in an 
indifferent tone ; “ it might displease her, and were no way 
agreeable to me.” 

“ And I,” said the Lady Lochleven, “ although her tem- 
per hath been more gentle of late, have no will to undergo, 
without necessity, the rancor of her wit.” 

“ Under your permission, madam,” said the chaplain, “ I 
will myself render your request to the Queen. During my 
long residence in this- house she hath not deigned to see 
me in private, or to hear my doctrine ; yet so may Heaven 
prosper my labors, as love for her soul, and desire to bring 
her into the right path, was my chief desire for coming 
hither.” 

“ Take care, Master Henderson,” said Douglas, in a tone 
which seemed almost sarcastic, “lest you rush hastily on an 
adventure to which you have no vocation — you are learned, 
and know the adage, Ne accesseris m consilium 7iisi vocatus. 
Who hath required this at your hand ?” 

“ The Master to whose service I am called,” answered 
tne preacher, looking upward, — “ He who hath commanded 
me to be earnest in season and out of season.” 

“Your acquaintance hath not been much, I think, with 
courts or princes?” continued the young Esquire. 


THE ABBOT. 


275 


“No, sir,” replied Henderson, “but, like my master 
Knox, I see nothing frightful in the fair face of a pretty 
lady.” 

“My son,” said the Lady of Lochleven, “quench not 
the good man’s zeal — let him do the errand to this unhappy 
Princess.” 

“ With more willingness than I would do it myself,” said 
George Douglas. Yet something in his manner appeared 
to contradict his words. 

The minister went accordingly, followed by Roland 
Graeme, and, demanding an audience of the imprisoned 
Princess, was admitted. He found her with her ladies, 
engaged in the daily task of embroidery. The Queen re- 
ceived him with that courtesy which, in ordinary cases, she 
used toward all who approached her, and the clergyman, 
in opening his commission, was obviously somewhat more 
embarrassed than he had expected to be — “ The good Lady 
of Lochleven— may it please your Grace ” 

He made a short pause, during which Mary said, with a 
smile, “ My Grace would, in truth, be well pleased, were 
the Lady of Lochleven our good lady — But go on — what is 
the will of the good Lady of Lochleven ? ” 

“She desires, madam,” said the chaplain, “that your 
Grace will permit this young gentleman, your page, 
Roland Grseme, to pass to Kinross, to look after some 
household stuff and hangings, sent hither for the better 
furnishing of your Grace’s apartments.” 

“The Lady of Lochleven,” said the Queen, “uses need- 
less ceremony, in requesting our permission for that which 
stands within her own pleasure. We well know that this 
young gentleman’s attendance on us had not been so long 
permitted, were he not thought to be more at the command 
of that good lady than at ours. But we cheerfully yield 
consent that he shall go on her errand— with our will we 
would doom no living creature to the captivity which we 
ourselves must suffer.” 

“ Ay, madam,” answered the preacher, “and it is doubt- 
less natural for humanity to quarrel with its prison-house. 
Yet there have been those who hav'e found that time spent 
in the house of temporal captivity may be so employed as 
to redeem us from spiritual slavery. ^ 

“ I apprehend your meaning, sir,” replied the Queen, 
“ but I have heard your apostle — I have heard Master John 
Knox ; and were I to be perv^erted, I would willingly re- 
sign to the ablest and most powerful of heresiarchs the 


276 


THE ABBOT. 


poor honor he might acquire by overcoming my faith and 
my hope.” 

“Madam,” said the preacher, “it is not to the talents or 
skill of the husbandman that God gives the increase — the 
words which were offered in vain by him whom you justly 
call our apostle, during the bustle and gayety of a court, 
may yet find better acceptance during the leisure for re- 
flection which this place affords. God knows, lady, that I 
speak in singleness of heart, as one who would as soon 
compare himself to the immortal angels as to the holy man 
whom you have named. Yet would you but condescend to 
apply to their noblest use those talents and that learning 
which all allow you to be possessed of — would you afford 
us but the slightest hope, that you would hear and regard 
what can be urged against the blinded superstition and 
idolatry in which you were brought up, sure am I that the 
most powerfully-gifted of my brethren, that even John 
Knox himself, would hasten hither, and account the rescue 
of your single soul from the nets of Romish error” 

“ I am obliged to you and to them for their charity,” said 
Mary , but as I have at present but one presence-cham- 
ber, I would reluctantly see it converted into a Hug-uenot 
synod.” ^ 

At least, madam, be not thus obstinately blinded in 
your errors ! Hear one who has hungered and thirsted, 
watched and prayed, to undertake the good work of your 
conversion, and who would be content to die the instant 
that a work so advantageous for yourself and so beneficial 
to bcotland were accomplished— Yes, lady, could I bpt 
shake the remaining pillar of the heathen temple in this 
land— and that permit me to term your faith in the delu- 
smns of Rome— I could be content to die overwhelmed in 
the rums ! 


^ I will not insult your zeal, sir,” replied Mary, “ by say- 
ing you are more likely to make sport for the Philistines 
than to overwhelm them— your charity claims my thanks 
^1 It IS warmly expressed and may be truly purposed— 

^ willing to do of you, and 
think rhat I may be as anxious to recall you to the ancient 

to Ja°rad^se°” ’ 

“ Then, madam if such be your generous purpose,” said 
Henderson, eagerly, “what hinders that we should dedicate 


^ r ^ \ LiiciL vvc anuuiu uei 

part of that time, unhappily now too much at 
Oiacc s disposal, to discuss a question so weighty ? 


your 

You. 


THE ABBOT. 


277 


by report of all men, are both learned and witty ; and I, 
though without such advantages, am strong in my cause as 
in a tower of defence. Why should we not spend some 
space in endeavoring to discover which of us hath the 
wrong side in this important matter?” 

“ Nay,” said Queen Mary, “ I never alleged my force 
was strong enough to accept of a combat en champ clos, with 
a scholar and a polemic. Besides, the match is not equal. 
You, sir, might retire when you felt the battle go against 
you, while I am tied to the stake, and have no permission 
to say the debate wearies me. — I would be alone.” 

She courtesied low to him as she uttered these words ; 
and Henderson, whose zeal was indeed ardent, but did not 
extend to the neglect of delicacy, bowed in return, and 
prepared to withdraw. 

“I would,” he said, “that my earnest wish, my most 
zealous prayer, could procure to your Grace any blessing 
or comfort, but especially that in which alone blessing or 
comfort is, as easily as the slightest intimation of your wish 
will remove me from your presence.” 

He was in the act of departing, when Mary said to him 
with much courtesy, “Do me no injury in your thoughts, 
good sir ; it may be, that if my time here be protracted 
longer — as surely I hope it will not, trusting that either my 
rebel subjects will repent of their disloyalty, or that my 
faithful lieges will obtain the upper hand — but if my time 
be here protracted, it may be I shall have no displeasure 
in hearing one who seems so reasonable and compassionate 
as yourself, and I may hazard your contempt by endeavor- 
ing to recollect and repeat the reasons which schoolmen 
and councils give for the faith that is in me, — although I 
fear that, God help me ! my Latin has deserted me with 
my other possessions. This must, however, be for another 
day. Meanwhile, sir, let the Lady of Lochleven employ 
my page as she lists — I will not afford suspicion by speak- 
ing a word to him before he goes. — Roland Graeme, my 
friend, lose not an opportunity of amusing thyself — dance, 
sing, run, and leap — all may be done merrily on the main- 
land ; but he must have more than quicksilver in his veins 
who would frolic here.” 

“Alas! madam,” said the preacher, “to what is it you 
exhort the youth, while time prasses, and eternity summons ? 
Can our salvation be insured by idle mirth, or our good 
work wrought out without fear and trembling ?” 

“1 cannot fear or tremble,” replied the Queen ; “to 


278 


THE ABBOT. 


Mary Stuart such emotions are unknown. But if weep- 
ing and sorrow on my part will atone for the boy’s enjoying 
an hour of boyish pleasure, be assured the penance shall 
be duly paid.” 

“ Nay, but, gracious lady,” said the preacher, “ in this 
you greatly err ; — our tears and our sorrows are all too 
little for our own faults and follies, nor can we transfer 
them, as your church falsely teaches, to the benefit of 
others.” 

“ May I pray you, sir,” answered the Queen, “ with as 
little offence as such a prayer may import, to transfer your- 
self elsewhere ? We are sick at heart, and may not now 
be disturbed with further controversy — and thou, Roland, 
take this little purse;” then, turning to the divine, she 
said, showing its contents, “ Look, reverend sir, — it con- 
tains only these two or three gold testoons, a coin which, 
though bearing my own poor features, I have ever found 
more active against me than on my side, just as my sub- 
jects take arms against me, with my own name for their 
summons and signal. — Take this purse, that thou mayest 
want no means of amusement. Fail not — fail not to bring 
me back news from Kinross ; only let it be such as, with- 
out suspicion or offence, may be told in the presence of 
this reverend gentleman, or of the good Lady Lochleven 
herself.” 

The last hint was too irresistible to be withstood ; and 
Henderson withdrew, half mortified, half pleased, with his 
reception ; for Mary, from long habit, and the address 
whic^ was natural to her, had learned in an extraordinary 
degree the art of evading discourse which was disagreeable 
to her feelings or prejudices, without affronting those by 
whom it was proffered. 

Roland Graeme retired with the chaplain, at a signal 
from his lady ; but it did not escape him, that as he left 
the room, stepping backward, and making the deep obei- 
sance due to royalty, Catherine Seyton held up her slender 
forefinger, with a gesture which he alone could witness, 
and which seemed to say, “ Remember what has passed be- 
twixt us.” 

The young page had now his last charge from the Lady 
of Lochleven. “There are revels,” she said, “this day at 
the village ; my son’s authority is, as yet, unable to pre- 
vent these continued workings of the ancient leaven of 
folly which the Romish priests have kneaded into the very 
souls of the Scottish peasantry. I do not command thee 


THE ABBOT. 


279 


to abstain from them ; that would be only to lay a snare 
for thy folly, or to teach thee falsehood ; but enjoy these 
vanities with moderation, and mark them as something 
thou must soon learn to renounce and contemn. Our 
chamberlain at Kinross, Luke Lundin, — Doctor, as he fool- 
ishly calleth himself, — will acquaint thee what is to be 
done in the matter about which thou goest. Remember 
thou art trusted — show thyself, therefore, worthy of trust.” 

When we recollect that Roland Graeme was not yet 
nineteen, and that he had spent his whole life in the soli- 
tary Castle of Avenel, excepting the few hours he had 
passed in Edinburgh, and his late residence at Lochleven 
(the latter period having very little served to enlarge his 
acquaintance with the gay world), we cannot wonder that 
his heart beat high with hope and curiosity at the pros- 
pect of partaking the sport even of a country wake. He 
hastened to his little cabin, and turned over the wardrobe 
with which (in every respect becoming his station) he had 
been supplied from Edinburgh, probably by order of the 
Earl of Murray. By the Queen’s command he had hitherto 
waited upon her in mourning, or at least in sad-colored rai- 
ment. Her condition, she said, admitted of nothing more 
gay. But now he selected the gayest dress his wardrobe 
afforded ; composed of scarlet slashed with black satin, the 
royal colors of Scotland— combed his long curled hair, dis- 
posed his chain and medal round a beaver hat of the new- 
est block ; and with the gay falchion, which had reached 
him in so mysterious a manner, hung by his side in an em- 
broidered belt, his appearance, added to his natural frank 
mien and handsome figure, formed a most commendable and 
pleasing specimen of the young gallant of the period. 
He sought to make his parting reverence to the Queen 
and her ladies, but old Dryfesdale hurried him to the 
boat. 

“We will have no private audiences,” he said, “my mas- 
ter ; since you are to be trusted with somewhat, we will try 
at least to save tha^heVom the temptation of opportunity. 
God help thee, child, he added, with a glance of contempt 
at his gay clothes ; “ an the bear-ward be yonder from Saint 
Andrews, have a care thou go not near him.” 

“ And wherefore, I pray you ? ” said Roland. 

“ Lest he take thee for one of his runaway jackanapes,” 
answered the steward, smiling sourly. 

“ I wear not my clothes at thy cost,” said Roland, indig- 
nantly. 


THE ABBOT. 


2b'0 


“Nor nt tliine own cither, my son,” replied the steward, 
“else would thy garb more nearly resemble thy merit and 
thy station.” 

Roland Graeme suppressed with difficulty the repartee 
which arose to his lips, and, wrapping his scarlet mantle 
around him, threw himself into the boat, which two row- 
ers, themselves urged by curiosity to see the revels, pulled 
stoutly toward the west end of the lake. As they put off, 
Roland thought he could discover the face of Catherine 
Seyton, though carefully withdrawn from observation, peep- 
ing from a loop-hole to view his departure. He pulled off 
his hat and held it up as a token that he saw and wished 
her adieu. A white kerchief waved for a second across 
the window, and for the rest of the little voyage the 
thoughts of Catherine Seyton disputed ground in his breast 
with the expectation excited by the approaching revel. As 
they drew nearer and nearer the shore, the sounds of mirth 
and music, the laugh, the hallo, and the shout, came thick- 
er upon the ear, and in a trice the boat was moored, and 
Roland Graeme hastened in quest of the chamberlain, that, 
being informed what time he had at his own disposal, he 
might lay it out to the best advantage. 


CHAPTER TWENTY-SIXTH. 

Room for the master of the ring, ye swains, 

Divide your crowded ranks — before him march 
The rural minstrelsy, the rattling drum, 

The clamorous war-pipe, and far-echoing horn. 

Rural Sports. — Somerville. 


No long space intervened ere Roland Graeme was able to 
discover among the crowd of reveairrs, who gambolled 
upon the open space which extends betwixt the village 
and the lake, a person of so great importance as Dr. Luke 
Lundin, upon whom devolved officially the charge of rep- 
resenting the lord of the land, and who was attended for 
support of his authority by a piper, a drummer, and four 
sturdy clowns armed with rusty halberds, garnished with 
party-colored ribbons, myrmidons who, early as the day 
was, had already broken more than one head in the 


THE ABBOT. 


281 


awful names of the Laird of Lochleven and his cham- 
berlain.* 

As soon as this dignitary was informed that the castle 
skiff had arrived, with a gallant, dressed like a lord’s son 
at the least, who desired presently to speak to him, he ad- 
justed his ruff and his black coat, turned round his girdle 
till the garnished hilt of his long rapier became visible, 
and walked with due solemnity toward the beach. Solemn 
indeed he was entitled to be, even on less important occa- 
sions, for he had been bred to the venerable study of 
medicine, as those acquainted with the science very soon 
discovered from the aphorisms which ornamented his dis- 
course. His success had not been equal to his pretensions; 
but as he was a native of the neighboring kingdom of Fife, 
and bore distant relation to, or dependence upon, the an- 
cient family of Lundin of that ilk, who were bound in 
close friendship with the house of Lochleven, he had, 
through their interest, got planted comfortably enough in 
his present station upon the banks of that beautiful lake. 
The profits of his chamberlainship being moderate, espe- 
cially in those unsettled times, he had eked it out a little 
with some practice in his original profession ; and it was 
said that the inhaJDitants of the village and barony of 
Kinross were not more effectually thirled (which may be 
translated enthralled) to the baron’s mill, than they were 
to the medical monopoly of the chamberlain. Woe betide 
the family of the rich boor, who presumed to depart this 
life without a passport from Dr. Luke Lundin ! for if his 
representatives had aught to settle with the baron, as it 
seldom happened otherwise, they were sure to find a cold 
friend in the cliamberlain. He was considerate enough, 
however, gratuitously to help the poor out of their ail- 
ments, and sometimes out of all their other distresses at 
the same time. 

* At Scottish fairs, the bailie, or magistrate, deputed by the lord in 
whose name the meeting is held, attends the fair with his guard, decides 
trifling disputes, and punishes on the spot any petty delinquencies. His 
attendants are usually armed with halberds, and, sometimes at least, es- 
corted by music. Thus, in the “Life and Death of Habbie Simpson,” w« 
are told of that famous minstrel — 

“At fairs he play’d before the spear-men. 

And gayly graithed in their gear-men ; 

Steel bonnets, jacks, and swords shone clear then. 

Like ony bead ; 

Now wha shall play before sic weir-men. 

Since Habbie’ s dead ! ” 


282 


THE ABBOT. 


Formal, in a double proportion, both as a physician and 
as a person in office, and proud of the scraps of learning 
which rendered his language almost universally unintelli- 
gible, Dr. Luke Lundin approached the beach, and hailed 
the page as he advanced toward him. “ The freshness of 
the morning upon you, fair sir — You are sent, I warrant me, 
to see if we observe here the regimen which her good 
ladyship hath prescribed, for eschewing all superstitious 
ceremonies and idle anilities in these our revels. I am 
aware that her good ladyship would willingly have alto- 
gether abolished and abrogated them — But as I had the 
honor to quote to her from the works of the learned Her- 
cules of Saxony, 07nis curatio est vel canonica vel coacta — that 
is, fair sir (for silk and velvet have seldom their Latin ad 
unguem), every cure must be wrought either by art and in- 
duction of rule, or by constraint ; and the wise physician 
chooseth the former. Which argument her ladyship being 
pleased to allow well of, I have made it my business so to 
blend instruction and caution with delight—/^/ mixtio^ as we 
say — that I can answer that the vulgar mind will be defe- 
cated and purged of anile and Popish fooleries by the medi- 
cament adhibited, so that the prunes vice being cleansed. Mas- 
ter Henderson, or any other able pastor,.may at will throw in 
tonics, and effectuate a perfect moral cure, tuto^ citojucunde'* 

“I have no charge. Dr. Lundin,” replied the page. 

“ Call me not doctor,” said the chamberlain, “ since I 
have laid aside my furred gown and bonnet, and retired 
me into this temporality of chamberlainship.” 

“Oh, sir,” said the page, who was no stranger by report 
to the character of this original, “ the cowl makes not the 
monk, neither the cord the friar — we have all heard of the 
cures wrought by Dr. Lundin.” 

“Toys, young sir — trifles,” answered the leech, with 
grave disclamation of superior skill; “the hit or miss 
practice of a poor retired gentleman in a short cloak and 
doublet — Marry, Heaven sent its blessing — and this I must 
say, better-fashioned mediciners have brought fewer pa- 
tients through — lunga roba corta scienzia^ saith the Italian — 
ha, fair sir, you have the language ? ” 

Roland Graeme did not think it necessary to expound to 
this learned Theban whether he understood him or no ; 
but leaving that matter uncertain, he told him he came in 
quest of certain packages which should have arrived at 
Kinross and been placed under the chamberlain’s charge 
the evening before. 


THE ABBOT. 


283 

“ Body o’ me ! ” said Doctor Liindin, “ I fear our com- 
mon carrier, John Auchtermuchty, hath met with some 
mischance, that he came not up last night with his wains 
— bad land this to journey in, my master ; and the fool will 
travel by night, too, although (besides all maladies from 
your Jussis to your pestis., wliich walk abroad in the night 
air), he may well fall in with half-a-dozen swash-bucklers, 
who will ease him at once of his baggage and his eartlily 
complaints. I must send forth to inquire after him, since 
he hath stuff of the honorable household on hand — and, 
by Our Lady, he hath stuff of mine too — certain drugs 
sent me from the city for composition of my alexipharmics 
— this gear must be looked to. — Hodge,” said he, address- 
ing one of his redoubted body-guard, “do thou and Toby 
Telfer take the mickle brown aver and the black cut-tailed 
mare, and make out toward the Kiery-craigs, and see what 
tidings you can have of Auchtermuchty and his wains — I 
trust it is only the medicine of the pottle-pot (being the 
only medicainentum which the beast useth) which hath 
caused him to tarry on the road. Take the ribbons from 
your halberds, ye knaves, and get on your jacks, plate- 
sleeves, and knap-skulls, that your presence may work 
some terror if you meet with opposers,” He then added, 
turning to Roland Graeme, “ I warrant me we shall have 
news of the wains in brief sesiJon. Meantime it will please 
you to look upon the sports ; but first to enter my poor 
lodging and take your morning’s cup. For what saith the 
School of Salerno ? 

Poculum, mane haustum, 

Restaurat naturam exhaustam.” 

“Your learning is too profound for me,” replied the 
page ; “and so would your draught be likewise, I fear.” 

“ Not a whit, fair sir— a cordial cup of sack, impregnated 
with wormwood, is the best anti-pestilential draught ; and, 
to speak truth, the pestilential miasmata are now very rife 
in the atmosphere. We live in a liappy time, young man,” 
continued lie, in a tone of grave irony, “and have many 
blessings unknown to our fathers — Here are two sovereigns 
in the land, a regnant and a claimant— that is enough of 
one good thing— but if any one wants more, he may find a 
king in every peel-house in the country ; so if we lack 
government, it is not for want of governors. Then have 
we a civil war to phlebotomize us every year, and to pre- 
vent our population from starving for want of food— and 


284 


THE ABBOT. 


for the same purpose vve have the Plague proposing us a 
visit, the best of all recipes for thinning a land, and con- 
verting younger brothers into elder ones. Well, each man 
in his vocation. You young fellows of the sword desire to 
wrestle, fence, or so forth, with some expert adversary ; 
and for my part, I love to match myself for life or death 
against that same Plague.” 

As they proceeded up the street of the little village 
toward the Doctor’s lodgings, his attention was succes- 
sively occupied by the various personages whom he met, 
and pointed out to the notice of his companion. 

“ Do you. see that fellow with the red bonnet, the blue 
jerkin, and the great rough baton in his hand ? I believe 
that clown hath the strength of a tower — He has lived 
fifty years in the world, and never encouraged the liberal 
sciences by buying one pennyworth of medicaments. — But 
see you that man with the facies hippocratica 7 ” said he, 
pointing out a thin peasant, with swelled legs, and a most 
cadaverous countenance; “that I call one of the worthiest 
men in the barony — he breakfasts, luncheons, dines and 
sups by my advice, and not without my medicine ; and for 
his own single part, will go farther to clear out a moderate 
stock of pharmaceutics, than half the country besides. — 
How do you, my honest friend ?” said he to the party in 
question, with a tone of condolence. 

“ Very weakly, sir, since I took the electuary,” answered 
the patient; “it neighbored ill with the two spoonfuls of 
pease-porridge and the kirnmilk.” 

“ Pease-porridge .and kirnmilk ! Have you been under 
medicine these ten years, and keep your diet so ill ? — the 
next morning take the electuary by itself, and touch noth- 
ing for six hours.” The poof object bowed and limped off. 

The next whom the doctor deigned to take notice of was 
a lame fellow, by whom the honor was altogether unde- 
served, for at sight of the mediciner he began to shuffle 
away in the crowd as fast as his infirmities would permit. 

“There is an ungrateful hound for you,” said Dr. Lun- 
din ; “ I cured him of the gout in his feet, and now he 
talks of the chargeableness of medicine, and makes the 
first use of his restored legs to fly from his physician. His 
podagra has become a chtragra.^ as honest Martial hath it — 
the gout hath got into his fingers, and he cannot draw his 
purse. Old saying and true, 


Pr??min aim poscit medicns, Sathr.n est. 


THE ABBOT. 


285 

We are angels when vve come to cure — devils when we ask 
payment — but I will administer a purgation to his purse, 

I warrant him. There is his brother, too, a sordid chuff. 
— So ho, there ! Saunders Darlet ! you have been ill, I 
hear ? ” 

“Just got the turn, as I was thinking to send to your 
honor, and I am brawly now again — it was nae great 
thing that ailed me.” 

“ Hark you, sirrah,” said the Doctor, “ I trust you re- 
member you are owing to the laird four stones of barley- 
meal and a bow of oats ; and I would have you send no 
more such kain-fowls as you sent last season, that looked 
as wretchedly as patients just dismissed from a plague- 
hospital ; and there is hard money owing besides.” 

“ I was thinking, sir,” said the man, more Scotico, that is, 
returning no direct answer on the subject on which he 
was addressed, “ my best way would be to come down to 
your honor, and take your advice yet, in case my trouble 
should come back.” 

“Do so, then, knave,” replied Lundin, “and remember 
what Ecclesiasticus saith — ‘ Give place to the physician 
let him not go from thee, for thou hast need of him.’ ” 

His exhortation was interrupted by an apparition, which 
seemed to strike the doctor with as much horror and sur- 
prise as his own visage inflicted upon sundry of those 
persons whom he had addressed. 

The figure which produced this effect on the Esculapius 
of the village was that of a tall old woman, who wore a 
high-crowned hat and muffler. The first of these habili- 
ments added apparently to her stature, and the other 
served to conceal the lower part of her face, and as tlie 
hat itself was slouched, little . could be seen besides two 
brown cheek-bones, and the eyes of swarthy fire that 
gleamed from under two shaggy gray eyebrows. She was 
dressed in a long dark-colored robe of unusual fashion, 
bordered at the skirts, and on the stomacher, with a sort 
of white trimming resembling the Jewish phylacteries, on 
which were wrought the characters of some unknown 
language. She held in her hand a walking-staff of black 

“ By the soul of Celsus,” said Doctor Luke Lundin, it 
is old Mother Nicneven herself— she hath come to beard 
me within mine own bounds, and in the very execution of 
mine office ! Have at thy coat. Old Woman, as the song 
gays— Hob Anster, let her presently be seized and com- 


286 


THE ABBOT. 


mitted to the tolbooth ; ?nd if there are any zealous 
bretliren here who would give the hag lier deserts, and 
duck her, as a witch, in the loch, I pray let tliem in no 
way be hindered.” 

But the myrimdons of Dr. Lundin showed in this case no 
alacrity to do his bidding. Hob Anster even ventured to 
remonstrate in the name of himself and his brethren. “To 
be sure he was to do his honor’s bidding ; and for a’ that 
folks said about the skill and witcheries of Mother Nic- 
neven, he would put his trust in God, and his hand on her 
collar, without dreadour. But she was no common spae- 
wife, this Mother Nicneven, like Jean Jopp that lived in 
the Brierie-baulk. She had lords and lairds that would 
ruffle for her. There was Moncrieff of Tippermalloch, that 
was Popish, and the laird of Carslogie, a kend Queen’s 
man, were in the fair, with wha kend how mony swords 
and bucklers at their back ; and they would be sure to 
make a break-out if the officers meddled with the auld 
Popish witch wife, who was sae weel friended ; mair espe- 
cially as the laird’s best men, such as were not in the 
castle, were in Edinburgh with him, and he doubted his 
honor the Doccor would find ower few to make a good 
backing, if blades were bare.” 

The Doctor listened unwillingly to this prudential coun- 
sel, and was only comforted by the faithful promise of his 
satellite, that “ the old woman should,” as he expressed 
it, “be ta’en canny the next time she trespassed on the 
bounds.” 

“ And in that event,” said the Doctor to his companion, 
“fire and faggot shall be the best of her welcome.” 

This ITe spoke in hearing of the dame herself, who even 
then, and in passing the Doctor, shot towmrd him from 
under her gray eyebrows a look of the most insulting and 
contemptuous superiority. 

“This way,” continued the physician, “this way,” mar- 
shalling his guest into liis lodging — “take care you stum- 
ble not over a retort, for it is hazardous for the ignorant 
to walk in the ways of art.” 

The page found all reason for the caution ; for besides 
stuffed birds, and lizards, and snakes bottled up, and bun- 
dles of simples made up, and other parcels spread out to 
dry, and all the confusion, not to mention the mingled and 
sickening smells incidental to a druggist’s stock in trade, 
he had also to avoid heaps of charcoal crucibles, boltheads, 
stoves, and the other furniture of a chemical laboratory. 


THE ABBOT. 


287 


Amongst his other philosophical qualities, Doctor Lun- 
din failed not to be a confused sloven, and his old dame 
housekeeper, whose life, as she said, was spent in “ red- 
ding him up,” had trotted off to the mart of gayety with 
other and younger folks. Much clattering and jangling 
therefore there was among jars, and bottles, and vials, ere 
the Doctor produced the salutiferous potion which he 
recommended so strongly, and a search equally long and 
noisy followed, among broken cans and cracked pipkins, 
ere he could bring forth a cup out of which to drink it. 
Both matters being at length achieved, the Doctor set the 
example to his guest by quaffing off a cup of the cordial, 
and smacking his lips with approbation as it descended 
his gullet. Roland, in turn, submitted to swallow the 
potion which his host so earnestly recommended, but 
which he found so insufferably bitter that he became 
eager to escape from the laboratory in search of a draught 
of 'fair water to expel the taste. In spite of his efforts, he 
was nevertheless detained by the garrulity of his host, till 
he gave him some account of Mother Nicneven. 

“ I care not to speak of her,” said the Doctor, “in the 
open air, and among the throng of people ; not for fright, 
like yon cowardly dog Anster, but because I would give 
no occasion for a fray, having no leisure to look to stabs, 
slashes, and broken bones. Men call the old hag a prophet- 
ess— I do scarce believe she could foretell when a brood 
of chickens will chip the shell— Men say she reads the 
heavens— my black bitch knows as much of them when 
she sits baying the moon — Men pretend the ancient wretch 
is a sorceress, a witch, and what not— Inter nos, I will 
never contradict a rumor which may bring her to the 
stake which she so justly deserves ; but neither will I be- 
lieve that the tales of witches which they din into our ears 
are naught but knavery, cozenage, and old womeris’ fable^ 

“In the name of Heav'^en, wffiat is she then, said the 
pa<^e “ that you make such a stir about her ? 

“She is one of those cursed old women,” replied the 
Doctor, “who take currently and impudently upon them- 
selves to act as advisers and curers of the sick, on the 
strength of some trash of herbs, some rhyme or spells, 
some'lulep or diet, drink or cordial.” 

“Nc^, go no further,” said the page ; “if they brew 
cordials, evil be their lot and all their partakers ! 

“ You say w^ell, young man,” said Dr. Lundin ; “ for mine 
owm part, I know no such pests to the commonwealth as 


288 


THE ABBOT, 


these old incarnate devils, who haunt the chambers of the 
brain-sick patients, that are mad enough to suffer them to 
interfere with, disturb, and let, the regular progress of a 
learned and artificial cure, with their sirups, and their 
juleps, and diascordium, and mithridate, and my Lady 
What-shall-cairum’s powder, and worthy Dame Trashem’s 
pill ; and thus make widows and orphans, and cheat the 
regular and well-studied physician, in order to get the 
name of wise women and skeely neighbors, and so forth. 
But no more on’t — Mother Nicneven* and I will meet one 
day, and she shall know there is danger in dealing with 
the Doctor.” 

“ It is a true word, and many have found it,” said the 
page ; “ but under your favor I would fain walk abroad 
for a little and see these sports.” 

“ It is well moved,” said the Doctor, “ and I too should 
be showing myself abroad. Moreover, the play waits us, 
young man — to-day, totus mundus agit histrione7nB And 
they sallied forth accordingly into the mirthful scene. 


CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVENTH. 

See on yon verdant lawn, the gathering crowd 
Thickens amain ; the buxom nymphs advance, 

Usher’d by jolly clowns ; distinctions cease, 

Lost in the common joy, and the bold slave 
Leans on his wealthy master unreproved. 

Rural Games. — Somerville. 

The reappearance of the dignified Chamberlain on the 
street of the village was eagerly hailed by the revellers, 
as a pledge that the play, or dramatic representation, which 
had been postponed owing to his absence, was now full 
surely to commence. Anything like an approach to this 
most interesting of all amusements was of recent origin in 
Scotland, and engaged public attention in proportion. All 
other sports were discontinued. The dance around the 
May-pole was arrested — the ring broken up and dispersed, 
while the dancers, each leading his partner by the hand, 
tripped off to the sylvan theatre. A truce was in like 

This was the name given to the grand Mother Witch; the very Hecate 
of Scottish popular superstition. Her name was bestowed, in one or two 
instances, upon sorceresses, who were held to resemble her by their supe- 
rior skill in “Hell’s black grammar.” 


THE ABBOT, 


289 


manner achieved betwixt a huge brown bear and certain 
mastiffs, who were tugging and pulling at his shaggy coat, 
under the mediation of the bear-ward and half-a-dozen 
butchers and yeomen, who, by dint of staving and tailings as 
it was technically termed, separated the unfortunate ani- 
mals, whose fury had for an hour past been their chief 
amusement. The itinerant minstrel found himself de- 
serted by the audience he had collected, even in the most 
interesting passage of the romance which he recited, and 
just as he was sending about his boy, with bonnet in hand, 
to collect their oblations. He indignantly stopped short in 
the midst of “ Rosewal and Lilian,” and, replacing his three- 
stringed fiddle, or rebeck, in its leathern case, followed the 
crowd, with no good-will, to the exhibition which had 
superseded his own. The juggler had ceased his exertions 
of emitting flame and smoke, and was content to respire 
in the manner of ordinary mortals, rather than to play gra- 
tuitously the part of a fiery dragon. In short, all other 
sports were suspended, so eagerly did the revellers throng 
toward the place of representation. 

They would err greatly who should regulate their ideas 
of this dramatic exhibition upon those derived from a 
modern theatre ; for the rude shows of Thespis were far 
less different from those exhibited by Euripides on the 
stage of Athens, with all its magnificent decorations and 
pomp of dresses and of scenery. In the present case 
there were no scenes, no stage, no machinery, no pit, box, 
and gallery, no box-lobby ; and, what might in poor Scot- 
land be some consolation for other negations, there was no 
taking of money at the door. As in the devices of the 
magnanimous Bottom, the actors had a greensward plot 
for a stage, and a hawthorn bush for a green-room and 
tiring-house ; the spectators being accommodated with 
seats on the artificial bank which had been raised 
around three-fourths of the playground, the remainder be- 
ing left open for the entrance and exit of the performers. 
Here sat the uncritical audience, the Chanrberlain in the 
centre, as the person highest in office, all alive to enjoy- 
ment and admiration, and all, therefore, dead to criticism. 

The characters which appeared and disappeared before 
the amused and interested audience were those which fill 
tlie earlier stage in all nations— old men, cheated by their 
wives and daughters, pillaged by their sons, and imposed 
on by their domestics, a braggadocio captain, a knavish 
pardoner or qusestioniiry, a country bumpkin, and a wan- 

19 


290 


THE ABBOT. 


ton city dame. Amid all these, and more acceptable than 
almost the whole put together, was the all-licensed fool, 
the Gracioso of the Spanish drama, who, with his cap 
fashioned into the resemblance of a coxcomb, and his 
bawble, a truncheon terminated by a carved figure wear- 
ing a fool’s cap, in his hand, went, came, and returned, 
mingling in every scene of the piece, and interrupting the 
business, without having any share himself in the action, 
and ever and anon transferring his gibes from the actors 
on the stage to the audience who sat around, prompt to 
applaud the whole. 

The wit of the piece, which was not of the most polished 
kind, was chiefly directed againk the superstitious prac- 
tices of the Catholic religion ; and the stage artillery had 
on this occasion been levelled by no less a person than 
Doctor Lundin, who had not only commanded the manager 
of the entertainment to select one of the numerous satires 
which had been written against the Papists (several of 
which were cast in a dramatic form), but had even, like the 
Prince of Denmark, caused them to insert, or according to 
his own phrase, to infuse here and there a few pleasantries 
of his own penning, on the same inexhaustible subject, 
hoping thereby to mollify the rigor of the Lady of Loch- 
leven toward pastimes of this description. He failed not 
to jog Roland’s elbow, who was sitting in state behind him, 
and recommend to his particular attention those favorite 
passages. As for the page, to whom the very idea of such 
an exhibition, simple asjt was, was entirelvnew, he beheld 
it with the undiminished and ecstatic delight with which 
men of all ranks look for the first time on dramatic rep- 
resentation, and laughed, and shouted, and clapped his 
hands as the performance proceeded. An incident at 
length took place which effectually broke off his interest 
in the business of the scene. 

One of the principal personages in the comic part of the 
drama was, as we have already said, a quaestionary, or par- 
doner, one of those itinerants who hawked about from 
place to place relics, real or pretended, with w’hich he ex- 
cited the devotion at once and the charity of the populace, 
and generally deceived both the one and the other. The 
hypocrisy, impudence, and profligacy of these clerical 
wanderers, had made them the subject of satire from the 
time of Chaycer down to that of Heywood. Their present 
representative failed not to follow tiie same line of humor, 
exhibiting pigs bones for relics, and boasting the virtues 


THE ABBOT 


291 


of small tin crosses, which had been shaken in the holy 
porringer at Loretto, and of cockle shells which had been 
brought from the shrine of Saint James of Compostella, 
all which he disposed of to the devout Catholics at nearly 
as high a price as antiquaries are now willing to pay for 
bawbles of similar intrinsic value. At length the pardoner 
pulled from his scrip a small phial of clear water, of which 
he vaunted the quality in the following verses : 

Listeneth, gode people, everiche one, 

For in the londe of Babylone, 

Far eastward I wot it lyeth, 

And is the first londe the sonne espieth, 

Ther, as he cometh fro out the se; 

In this ilk londe, as thinketh me, 

Right as holie legendes tell, 

Snottreth from a roke a well, 

• And falleth into ane bath of ston. 

Where chaste Susanne, in times long gon, 

Was wont to wash her bodie and lim — 

Mickle vertue hath that streme. 

As ye shall se er that ye pas, 

Ensample l)y this little glas — 

Through nightes cold, and dayes hote, 

Hiderward I have it brought ; 

Flath a wife made slip or slide, 

Or a maiden stepp’d aside, 

Putteth this water under her nese. 

Wold she nold she, she shall snese. 

The jest, as the reader skilful in the antique language of 
the drama must at once perceive, turned on the same pivot 
as in the old minstrel tales of the Drinking Horn of King 
Arthur, and the Mantle made Amiss. But the audience 
were neither learned nor critical enough to challenge its 
want of originality. The potent relic was, after such 
grimace and buffoonery as befitted the subject, presented 
successively to each of the female personages of the drama, 
not one of whom sustained the supposed test of discretion ; 
but, to the infinite delight of the audience, sneezed much 
louder and longer than perhaps they themselves had 
counted on. The jest seemed at last worn threadbare, and 
the pardoner was passing on to some new pleasantry, when 
the jester or clown of the drama, possessing himself secretly 
of the phial which contained the wondrous liquor, applied 
it suddenly to the nose of a young woman, who, with her 
black silk muffler or screen drawn over her face, was sit- 
ting in the foremost rank of the spectators, intent appar- 
ently upon the business of the stage. The contents of the 


292 


THE ABBOT. 


vial, well calculated to sustain the credit of the pardoner’s 
legend, set the damsel a-sneezing violently, an admission 
of frailty which was received with shouts of rapture by the 
audience. These were soon, however, renewed at the ex- 
pense of the jester himself, when the insulted maiden extri- 
cated, ere the paroxysm was well over, one hand from the 
folds of her mantle, and bestowed on the wag a buffet, 
which made him reel fully his own length from the par- 
doner, and then acknowledge the favor by instant prostra- 
tion. 

No one pities a jester overcome in his vocation, and the 
clown met with little sympathy, when rising from the 
ground, and whimpering forth his complaints of liarsh 
treatment, he invoked the assistance and sympathy of the 
audience. But the Chamberlain, feeling his ov\ n dignity 
insulted, ordered two of his halberdiers to bring the culprit 
before him. When these official persons first approached 
the virago, she threw herself into an attitude of firm defi- 
ance, as if determined to resist their authority ; and from 
the sample of strength and spirit which she had already 
displayed, they showed no alacrity at executing their com- 
mission. But on half a minute’s reflection, the damsel 
changed totally her attitude and manner, folded her cloak 
around her arms in modest and maiden-like fashion, and 
walked of her own accord to the presence of the great man, 
followed and guarded by the two manful satellites. As she 
moved across the vacant space, and more especially as she 
stood at the footstool of the Doctor’s judgment seat, the 
maiden discovered that lightness and elasticity of step, and 
natural grace of manner, wiiich connoisseurs in female 
beauty know to be seldom divided from it. Moreover, her 
neat russet-colored jacket, and sliort petticoat of the same 
color, displayed a handsome form and a pretty leg. Her 
features were concealed by the screen ; but the Doctor, 
whose gravity did not prevent his pretensions to be a con- 
noisseur of the school we have hinted at, saw enough to 
judge favorably of the piece by the sample. 

He began, however, with considerable austerity of man- 
iicr. “And how now, saucy quean ! ” said the medical man 
of office; “what have you to say why I should not order 
you to be ducked in the loch, for lifting your hand to the 
man in my presence?” 

“ Marry, replied the culprit, “because I judge that your 
honor will not think the cold bath necessarv for my com- 
plaints.” 


THE ABBOT, 


293 


“ A pestilent jade,” said the Doctor, whispering to Roland 
Graeme ; “and I’ll warrant her a good one — her voice is as 
sweet as sirup. — But, my pretty maiden,” said he, “ you 
show us wonderful little of that countenance of yours — be 
pleased to throw’ aside your muffler.” 

“ I trust your honor will excuse me till w’e are more pri- 
vate,” answered the maiden; “for I have acquaintance, 
and I should like ill to be known in the country as the poor 
girl whom that scurvy knave put his jest upon.” 

“ Fear nothing for thy good name, my sweet little modi- 
cum of candied manna,” replied tire Doctor, “for I protest 
to you, as I am Chamberlain of Lochleven, Kinross, and so 
forth, that the chaste Susanna herself could not have 
snuffed that elixir without sternutation, being in truth a 
curious distillation of rectified acetum,, or vinegar of the sun, 
prepared by mine own hands — Wherefore, as thou sayest 
thou wilt come to me in private, and express thy contrition 
for the offence whereof thou hast been guilty, I command 
that all for the present go forward as if no such interrup- 
tion of the prescribed course had taken place.” 

The damsel courtesied and tripped back to her place. 
The play proceeded, but it no longer attracted the atten- 
tion of Roland Graeme. 

The voice, the figure, and what the veil permitted to be 
seen of the neck and tresses of the village damsel, bore so 
strong a resemblance to those of Catherine Seyton, that he 
felt like one bewildered in the mazes of a changeful and 
stupefying dream. The memorable scene of the hostlery 
rushed on his recollection, with all its doubtful and marvel- 
lous circumstances. Were the tales of enchantment which 
he had read in romances realized in this extraordinary girl ? 
Could she transport herself from the walled and guarded 
Castle of Lochleven, moated wdth its broad lake (toward 
Avhich he cast back a look as if to ascertain it w’as still in 
existence), and watched with such scrupulous care as the 
safety of a nation demanded — Could she surmount all 
these obstacles, and make such careless and dangerous use 
of her liberty as to engage herself publicly in a quarrel in a 
village fair ? Roland was unable to determine whether 
the exertions wdiich it must have cost her to gain her free- 
dom, or the use to which she had put it, rendered her the 
most unaccountable creature. 

Lost in these meditations, he kept his gaze fixed on the 
subject of them : and in every casual motion, discovered, 
or tiiought he discovered, something which reminded him 


294 


THE ABBOT. 


still more strongly of Catherine Seyton. It occurred to 
him more than once, indeed, that he might be deceiving 
himself by exaggerating some casual likeness into absolute 
identity. But then the meeting at the hostlery of Saint 
Michael’s returned to his mind, and it seemed in the high- 
est degree improbable, that under such various circum- 
stances, mere imagination should twice have found oppor- 
tunity to play him the self-same trick. This time, however, 
he determined to have his doubts resolved, and for this 
purpose he sat during the rest of the play like a greyhound 
in the slip, ready to spring upon the hare the instant that 
she was started. The damsel, whom he watched attentively 
lest she should escape in the crowd when the spectacle was 
closed, sat as if perfectly unconscious that she was ob- 
served. But the worthy Doctor marked the direction of 
his eyes, and magnanimously suppressed his own inclina- 
tion to become the Theseus to this Hippolyta, in deference 
to the rights of hospitality, which enjoined him to forbear 
interference with the pleasurable pursuits of his young 
friend. He passed one or two formal gibes upon the fixed 
attention which the page paid to the unknown, and upon his 
own jealousy ; adding, however, that if both were to be pre- 
sented to the patient at once, he had little doubt she would 
think the younger man the sounder prescription. “ I fear 
me,” he added, “we shall have no news of the knave 
Auchtermuchty for some time, since the vermin whom I 
sent after him seem to have proved corbie-messengers. 
So you have an hour or two on your hands. Master Page ; 
and as the minstrels are beginning to strike up, now that 
the play is ended, why, an you incline for a dance, yonder 
is the green, and there sits your partner— I trust you will 
hold me perfect in my diagnostics, since I see with half an 
eye what disease you are sick of, and have administered a 
pleasing remedy. 


Discernit sapiens res (as Chambers hath it) qttas ccmfundit asellus.'’* 


The page hardly heard the end of the learned adage, or 
the charge which the Chamberlain gave him to be within 
reach, in case of the wains arriving suddenly and sooner 
than expected — so eager he was at once to shake himself 
free of his learned associate, and to satisfy his curiosity 
regaiding the unknown damsel. Yet in the haste which he 
made toward her, he found time to reflect, that, in order to 
secure an opportunity of conversing with her in private, 


THE ABBOT. 


295 


he must not alarm her at first accosting her. He therefore 
composed his manner and gait, and advancing with becom- 
ing self-confidence before three or four coiintry fellows 
who were intent on the same design, but knew not so well 
how to put their request into shape, he acquainted her 
that he, as the deputy of the venerable Chamberlain, re- 
quested the honor of her hand as a partner. 

“ The venerable Chamberlain,” said the damsel frankly, 
reaching the page her hand, “ does very well to exercise 
this part of his privilege by deputy ; and I suppose the 
laws of the revels leave me no choice but to accept of his 
faithful delegate.” 

“ Provided, fair damsel,” said the page, “his choice of a 
delegate is not altogether distasteful to you.” 

“ Of that, fair sir,” replied the maiden, “ I will tell you 
more when we have danced the first measure.” 

Catherine Seyton had admirable skill in gestic lore, and 
was sometimes called on to dance for the amusement of 
her royal mistress. Roland Graeme had often been a spec- 
tator of her skill, and sometimes, at the Queen’s command, 
Catherine’s partner on such occasions. He was, therefore, 
perfectly acquainted with Catherine’s mode of dancing; 
and observed that his present partner, in grace, in agility, 
in quickness of ear, and precision of execution, exactly 
resembled her, save that the Scottish jig, which he now 
danced with her, required a more violent and rapid motion, 
and more rustic agility, than the stately pavens, lavoltas, 
and courantoes, which he had seen her execute in the 
chamber of Queen Mary. The active duties of the dance 
left him little time for reflection, and. none for conversa- 
tion ; but when their pas de deux was finished, amidst the 
acclamations of the villagers, who had seldom witnessed 
such an exhibition, he took an opportunity, when they 
yielded up the green to another couple, to use the privilege 
of a partner, and enter into conversation with the mysteri- 
ous maiden, whom he still held by the hand. 

“ Fair partner, may I not crave the name of her who has 
graced me thus far ? ” 

“You may,” said the maiden; “but it is a question 
whether I shall answer you.” 

“ And why ? ” asked Roland. 

“ Because nobody gives anything for nothing— and you 
can tell me nothing in return which I care to hear.” 

“ Could I not tefl you my name and lineage in exchange 
for yours ? ” returned Roland 


296 


THE ABBOT. 


“No !” answered the maiden, “for you know little of 
either.” 

“ Flow ? said the page, somewhat angrily. 

“ Wrath you not for the matter,” said the damsel ; “ I 
will show you in an instant that I know more of you than 
you do of yourself.” 

“ Indeed,” answered Graeme; “for whom then do you 
take me ? ” 

“For the wild falcon,” answered she, “whom a dog 
brought in his mouth to a certain castle, when he was but 
an unfledged eyas — for the hawk whom men dare not let 
fly, lest he should check at game, and pounce, on carrion 
— whom folk must keep hooded till he has the proper 
light of his eyes, and can discover good from evil.” 

“Well — be it so,” replied Roland Graeme ; “I guess at 
a part of your parable, fair mistress mine — and perhaps I 
know as much of you as you do of me, and can well dis- 
pense with the information which you are so niggard in 
giving.” 

“Prove that,” said the maiden, “and I will give you 
credit for more penetration than I judged you to be gifted 
withal.” 

“It shall be proved instantly,” said Roland Graeme. 
“The first letter of your name is S, and the last N.” 

“Admirable,” said his partner, “guess on.” 

“It pleases you to-day,” continued Roland, “to wear 
the snood and kirtle, and perhaps you may be seen to-mor- 
row in hat and feather, hose and doublet.” 

“In the clout! in the clout I you have hit the very 
white,” said the damsel, suppressing a great inclination to 
laugh. 

“You can switch men’s eyes out of their heads, as well 
as the heart out of their bosoms.” 

These last words were uttered in a low and tender tone, 
which, to Roland’s great mortification, and somewhat to 
his displeasure, was so far from allaying, that it greatly 
increased his partner’s disposition to laughter. She could 
scarce compose herself while she replied, “If you had 
thought my hand so formidable,” extricating it from his 
hold, “you would not have grasped it so hard ; but I per- 
ceive you know me so fully, that there is no occasion to 
show you my face.” 

“Fair Catherine,” said the page, “he were unworthy 
ever to have seen you, far less to have dwelt so long in the 
same service, and under the same roof with you, who could 


THE ABBOT. 


297 


mistake your air, your gesture, your step in walking or in 
dancing, the turn of your neck, the symmetry of your form 
— none could be so dull as not to recognize you by so many 
proofs ; but for me, I could swear even to that tress of hair 
that escapes from under your muffler.” 

“And to the face, of course, which that muffler covers,” 
said the maiden, removing her veil, and in an instant 
endeavoring to replace it. She showed the features of 
Catherine ; but an unusual degree of petulant impatience 
inflamed them, when, from some awkwardness in her 
management of the muffler, she was unable again to adjust 
it with that dexterity which was a principal accomplish- 
ment of the coquettes of the time. 

“The fiend rive the rag to tatters !” said the damsel, as 
the veil fluttered about her shoulders, with an accent so 
earnest and decided, that it made the page start. He 
looked again at the damsel’s face, but the information 
which his eyes received was to the same purport as before. 
He assisted her to adjust her muffler, and both were for an 
instant silent. The damsel spoke first, for Roland Graeme 
was overwhelmed with surprise at the contrarieties which 
Catherine Seyton seemed to include in her person and 
character. 

“You are surprised,” said the damsel to him, “at what 
you see and hear — But the times which make females men 
are least of all fitted for men to become women ; yet you 
yourself are in danger of such a change.” 

“ I in danger of becoming effeminate ! ” said the page. 

“ Yes, you, for all the boldness of your reply,” said the 
damsel. “When you should hold fast your religion, be- 
cause it is assailed on all sides by rebels, traitors, and 
heretics, you let it glide out of your breast like water 
grasped in the hand. If you are driven from the faith of 
your fathers from fear of a traitor, is not that womanish ? 
—If you are cajoled b'y the cunning arguments of a trum- 
peter of heresy, or the praises of a puritanic old woman, is 
not that womanish ? — If you are bribed by the hope of 
spoil and preferment, is not that womanish ? — And when 
you wonder at my venting a threat or an execration, should 
you not wonder at yourself, who, pretending to a gentle 
name, and aspiring to knighthood, can be at the same time 
cowardly, silly, and self-interested ! ” 

“ I would that a man would bring such a charge,” said 
the page ; “ he should see, ere his life was a minute older, 
whether he had cause to term me coward or no.” 


298 


THE ABBOT. 


“ Beware of such big words,” answered the maiden ; 
“ you said but anon that I sometimes wear hose and doub- 
let.” 

“ But remain still Catherine Seyton, wear what you list,” 
said the page, endeavoring again to possess himself of her 
hand. 

“ You indeed are pleased to call me so,” replied the 
maiden, evading his intention, “ but I have many other 
names besides.” 

“ And will you not reply to that,” said the page, “ by 
which you are distinguished beyond every other maiden in 
Scotland ? ” 

The damsel, unallured by his praises, still kept aloof, and 
sung with gayety a verse from an old ballad — 

“Oh, some do call me Jack, sweet love, 

And some do call me Gill ; 

But when I ride to Holyrood, 

My name is Wilful Will.” 

“ Wilful Will !” exclaimed the page, impatiently; “say 
rather Will o’ the Wisp — Jack with the Lantern — for never 
was such a wandering or deceitful meteor ! ” 

“ If I be such,” replied the maiden, “ I ask no fools to 
follow me — If they do so, it is at their own pleasure, and 
must be on their own proper peril.” 

“ Nay, but, dearest Catherine,” said Roland Graeme, “be 
for one instant serious.” 

“ If you will call me your dearest Catherine, when I 
have given you so many names to choose upon,” replied 
the damsel, “ I would ask you how, supposing me for two 
or three hours of my life escaped from yonder tower, you 
have the cruelty to ask me to be serious during the only 
merry moments I have seen perhaps for months ?” 

“ Ay, but, fair Catherine, there are moments of deep and 
true feeling, which are worth ten thousand years of the 
liveliest mirth ; and such was that of yesterday when you 
so nearly” 

“So nearly what ?” demanded the maiden, hastily. 

“ When you approached your lips so near to the sign you 
had traced on my forehead.” 

“Mother of Heaven !” exclaimed she, in a yet fiercer 
tone, and with a more masculine manner than she had yet 
exhibited — “ Catherine Seyton approach her lips to a man’s 
brow, and thou that man ?— vassal, thou best ! ” 

The page stood astonished; but conceiving he had 


THE ABBOT. 


299 


alarmed the damsel’s delicacy by alluding to the enthusi- 
asm of a moment, and the manner in which he had ex- 
pressed it, he endeavored to falter forth an apology. His 
excuses, although he was unable to give them any regular 
shape, were accepted by his companion, who had indeed 
suppressed her indignation after its first explosion — 
“ Speak no more on’t,” she said. “ And now let us part ; 
our conversation may attract more notice than is conve- 
nient for either of us.” 

“ Nay, but allow me at least to follow you to some se- 
questered place.” 

“You dare not,” replied the maiden. 

“ How,” said the youth, “dare not ? where is it you dare 
go, where I dare not follow ? ” 

“You fear a Will o’ the Wisp,” said the damsel; “how 
would you face a fiery dragon, with an enchantress mount- 
ed on its back ? ” 

“ Like Sir Eger, Sir Grime, or Sir Greysteil,” said the 
page ; “but be there such toys to be seen here ?” 

“ I go to Mother Nicneven’s,” answered the maid ; “and 
she is witch enough to rein the horned devil, with a red 
silk thread for a bridle, and a rowan-tree switch for a 
whip.” 

“ I will follow you,” said the page. 

“Let it be at some distance,” said the maiden. 

And wrapping her mantle round her With more success 
than on her former attempt, she mingled with the throng, 
and walked toward the village, heedfully followed by Ro- 
land Graeme at some distance, and under every precaution 
which he could use to prevent his purpose from being 
observed. 


CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHTH. 

Yes, it is she whose eyes look’d on thy childhood, 

And watch’d with trembling hope thy dawn of youth, 

That now, with these same eye-balls dimm’d with age. 

And dimmer yet with tears, sees thy dishonor. 

Old Play. 

At the entrance of the principal, or indeed, so to speak, 
the only street in Kinross, the damsel, whose steps were 
pursued by Roland Graeme, cast a glance behind her, as if 
to be certain he had not lost trace of her, and then 
plunged down a narrow lane which ran betwixt two rows 


300 


THE ABBOT. 


of poor and ruinous cottages. She paused for a second at 
the door of one of those miserable tenements, again cast 
her eye up the lane toward Roland, then lifted the latch, 
opened the door, and disappeared from his view. 

With whatever haste the page followed her example, 
the difficulty which he found in discovering the trick of 
the latch, which did not work quite in the usual manner, 
and in pushing open the door, which did not yield to his 
first effort, delayed for a minute or two his entrance into 
the cottage. A dark and smoky passage led, as usual, be- 
twixt the exterior wall of the house and the hallan, or clay 
wall, which served as a partition betwixt it and the in- 
terior. At the end of this passage, and through the parti- 
tion, was a door leading into the ben., or inner chamber of 
the cottage, and when Roland Graeme’s hand was upon 
the latch of this door, a female voice pronounced, ^'‘Bene- 
dictus qui veniat in fiomine Domini., damnandus qui in nomine 
inhnici.” On entering the apartment, he perceived the 
figure which the chamberlain had pointed out to him as 
Mother Nicneven, seated beside the lowdy hearth. But 
there was no other person in the room. Roland Graeme 
gazed around in surprise at the disappearance of Catherine 
Seyton, without paying much regard to the supposed sor- 
ceress, until she attracted and riveted his regard by the 
tone in which she asked him, “What seekest thou here?” 

“ I seek,” said the page, with much embarrassment ; “ I 
seek ” 

But his answer was cut short, when the old. woman, 
drawing her huge gray eyebrows sternly together, with a 
frown which knitted her brow into a thousand wrinkles, 
arose, and erecting herself up to her full natural size, tore 
the kerchief from her head, and seizing Roland by the 
arm, made two strides across the floor of\he apartment to 
a small window through which the light fell full on her 
face, and showed the astonished youth the countenance of 
Magdalen Graeme. “Yes, Roland,” she said, “thine eves 
deceive thee not; we show' thee truly the features of her 
whom thou hast thyself deceived, whose wine thou hast 
turned into gall, her bread of joyfulness into bitter poi- 
son, her hope into the blackest despair — it is she who now 
demands of thee, what seekest thou here ? — She wliose 
heaviest sin toward Heaven hath been that she loved thee 
even better than the weal of the whole church, and could 
not without reluctance surrender tliee even in the cause 
of God she now asks you, what seekest thou here ? ” 


THE ABBOT. 


301 

While she spoke she kept her broad black eye riveted 
on the youth’s face, with the expression with which the 
eagle regards his prey ere he tears it to pieces. Ro- 
land felt himself at the moment incapable either of reply 
or evasion. This extraordinary enthusiast had preser^’ed 
over him in some measure the ascendency which she had 
acquired during his childhood ; and, besides, he knew the 
violence of her passions and her impatience of contradic- 
tion, and was sensible that almost any reply which he 
could make was likely to throw her into an ecstacy of 
rage. He was therefore silent ; and Magdalen Graeme 
proceeded with increasing enthusiasm in her apostrophe — 
“ Once more, what seek’st thou, false boy ? — seek’st thou 
the honor thou hast renounced, the faith thou hast aban- 
doned, the hopes thou hast destroyed ? — Or didst thou seek 
me, the sole protectress of thy youth, the only parent 
whom thou hast known, that thou mayest trample on my 
gray hairs, even as thou hast already trampled on the best 
wdshes of my heart ?” 

“Pardon me, mother,” said Roland Graeme; “but, in 
truth and reason, I deserve not your blame. I have been 
treated amongst you — even by yourself, my reverend par- 
ent, as well as by others — as one who lacked in the com- 
mon attributes of free-will and human reason, or was at 
least deemed unfit to exercise them. A land of enchant- 
ment have I been led into, and spells have been cast 
around me — every one has met me in disguise— every one 
has spoken to me in parables — I have been like one who 
walks in a wear}^ and bewildering dream ; and now you 
blame me that I have not the sense, and judgment, and 
steadiness of a waking, and a disenchanted, and a reason- 
able man, who knows what he is doing, and wherefore he 
does it. If one must walk with masks and spectres, who 
waft themselves from place to place as it were in vision 
rather than reality, it might shake the soundest faith and 
turn the wisest head. I sought, since I must needs avow 
my folly, the same Catherine Seyton with whom you made 
me first acquainted, and whom I most strangely find in 
this village of Kinross, gayest among the revellers, when 
I had but just left her in the well-guarded Castle of Loch- 
leven, the sad attendant of an imprisoned Queen — I sought 
her, and in her place I find you, my mother, more strangely 
disguised than even she is.” 

“ And what hadst thou to do with Catherine Seyton ? ” 
said the matron, sternly ; “is this a time or a world to fol- 


302 


THE ABBOT. 


low maidens, or to dance around a May-pole? When the 
trumpet summons every true-hearted Scotsman around the 
standard of the true sovereign, shall thou be found loiter- 
ing in a lady’s bower ? ” 

“ No, by Heaven, nor imprisoned in the rugged walls of 
an island castle ! ” answered Roland Graeme : “ I would the 
blast were to sound even now, for I fear that nothing less 
loud will dispel the chimerical visions by which I am sur- 
rounded.” 

“Doubt not that it will be winded,” said the matron, 
“and that so fearfully loud, that Scotland will never hear 
the like until the last and loudest blast of all shall announce 
to mountain and to valley that time is no more. Mean- 
while, be thou but brave and constant — Serve God and 
honor thy sovereign — Abide by thy religion — I cannot — I 
will not — I dare not ask thee the truth of the terrible sur- 
mises I have heard touching thy falling away — perfect not 
that accursed sacrifice — and yet, even at this late hour, 
thou mayest be what I have hoped for, the son of my dear- 
est hope — what say I ? the son of my hope — thou shalt be 
the hope of Scotland, her boast and her honor ! — Even thy 
wildest and most foolish wishes may perchance be fulfilled 
— I might blush to mingle meaner motives with the noble 
guerdon I hold out to thee — It shames me, being sucli as 
I am, to mention the idle passions of youth, save with con- 
tempt and the purpose of censure. But we must ^-ibe 
children to wholesome medicine by the olfer of cates, and 
youth to honorable achievement with the promise of pleas- 
ure. Mark me, therefore, Roland. The love of Catherine 
Seyton will follow him only who. shall achieve the freedom 
of her mistress ; and believe, it may be one day in thine 
own power to be that happy lover. Cast, therefore, away 
doubt and fear, and prepare to do what religion calls for, 
what thy country demands of thee, what thy duty as a 
subject and as a servant alike require at your hand ; and 
be assured, even the idlest or wildest wishes of thy heart 
will be most readily attained by following the call of thy 
duty.” 

As she ceased speaking, a double knock was heard 
against the inner door. The matron, hastily adjusting her 
muffler, and resuming her chair by the hearth, demanded 
who was there. 

Salve in nomine sanctoS was answered from without. 

Salvete et vosS answered Magdalen Graeme. 

And a man entered in the ordinary dress of a nobleman’s 


THE .IBB or. 303 

retainer, wearing at his girdle a sword and buckler — “ I 
sought you,” said he, “ my mother, and him whom I see 
with you.” Then addressing himself to Roland Graeme, 
he said to him, “ Hast thou not a packet from George 
Douglas ? ” 

“ I have,” said the page, suddenly recollecting that whicli 
had been committed to his charge in the morning, “ but I 
may not deliver it to anyone without some token that they 
have a right to ask it.” 

“You say well,” replied the servdng-man, and whispered 
into his ear ; “The packet which I ask is the report to his 
father — will this token suffice ? ” 

“ It will,” replied the page, and taking the packet from 
his bosom, gave it to the man. 

“ I will return presently,” said the serving-man, and left 
the cottage. 

Roland had now sufficiently recovered his surprise to 
accost his relative in turn, and request to know the reason 
why he found her in so precarious a disguise, and a place 
so dangerous — “You cannot be ignorant,” he said, “of the 
hatred that the Lady of Lochleven bears to those of your 
— that is of our religion — your present disguise lays you 
open to suspicions of a different kind, but inferring no less 
hazard ; and whether as a Catholic, or as a sorceress, or as 
a friend to the unfortunate Queen, you are in equal dan- 
ger, if apprehended within the bounds of the Douglas ; 
ancf-in the chamberlain who administers their authority 
vou have, for his own reasons, an enemy, and a bitter 
one.” 

“I know it,” said the matron, her eyes kindling with 
triumph; “ I know that, vain of his school-craft and carnal 
wdsdom, Luke Lundin views with jealousy and hatred the 
blessings which the saints have conferred on my prayers, 
and on the holy relics, before the touch, nay, before the 
bare presence of which, disease and death have so often 
been known to retreat. I know he w'ould rend and tear 
me ; but there is a chain and a muzzle on the ban-dog that 
shall restrain his iury, and the Master’s servant shall not 
be offended by him"' until the Master’s work is wrought. 
When that hour comes, let the shadows of the evening 
descend on me in thunder and in tempest ; the time shall 
be welcome that relieves my eyes from seeing guilt, and 
my ears from listening to blasphemy. Do thou but be 
constant— play thy part as I have played and will play mine, 
and my release shall be like that of a blessed martyr whose 


304 


THE ABBOT. 


ascent to heaven angels hail with psalm and song, while 
earth pursues him with hiss and with execration.” 

As she concluded, the serving-man again entered the 
cottage, and said, “ All is well ! the time holds for to-mor- 
row night.” 

“ What time ? what holds ? ” exclaimed Roland Graeme ; 
“ I trust I have given the Douglas’s packet to no wrong” 

“ Content yourself, young man,” answered the serving- 
man ; “ thou hast my word and token.” 

“ I know not if the token be right,” said the page ; “ and 
I care not much for the word of a stranger.” 

“What,” said the matron, “although thou mayest have 
given a packet delivered to thy charge by one of the 
Queen’s rebels into the hand of a loyal subject — there were 
no great mistake in that, thou hot-brained boy ! ” 

“ By Saint Andrew, there were foul mistake, though,” 
answered the page ; “ it is the very spirit of my duty, in 
this first stage of chivalry, to be faithful to my trust ; and 
had the devil given me a message to discharge, I would not 
(so I had plighted my faith to the contrary) betray his 
counsel to an angel of light.” 

“Now, by the love I once bore thee,” said the matron, 
“ I could slay thee with mine own hand, when I hear thee 
talk of a dearer faith being due to rebels and heretics than 
thou owest to thy church and thy prince ! ” 

“ Be patient, my good sister,” said the serving-man ; “ I 
will give him such reasons as shall counterbalance the 
scruples which beset him — the spirit is honorable, though 
now it may be mistimed and misplaced. — Follow me, young 
man.” 

“ Ere I go to call this stranger to a reckoning,” said the 
page to the matron, “ is there nothing I can do for your 
comfort and safety ?” 

“Nothing,” she replied, “ nothing, save what will lead 
more to thine own honor ; the saints who have protected 
me thus far will lend me succor as I need it. Tread the 
path of glory that is before thee, and only think of me as 
the creature on earth who will be most delighted to hear of 
thy fame. Follow the stranger — he hath tidings for you 
that you little expect.” 

The stranger remained on the threshold as if waiting for 
Roland, and as soon as he saw him put himself in motion 
he moved on before at a quick pace. Diving still deeper 
down the lane, Roland perceived that it was now bordered 
by buildings upon the one side only, and that the other 


THE ABBOT 


305 


was fenced by a high old wall, over which some trees ex- 
tended their branches. Descending a good way farther, 
they came to a small door in the wall. Roland’s guide 
paused, looked around for an instant to see if anyone were 
within sight, then taking a key from his pocket, opened 
the door "and entered, making a sign to Roland Graeme to 
follow him. He did so, and the stranger locked the door 
carefully on the inside. During this operation the page 
had a moment to look around, and perceived that he was 
in a small orchard very trimly kept. 

The stranger led him through an alley or two, shaded by 
trees loaded with summer fruit, into a pleached arbor, 
where, taking the turf-seat which was on the one side, he 
motioned to Roland to occupy that which was opposite to 
him, and, after a momentar>^ silence, opened the conver- 
sation as follows: “You have asked a better warrant than 
the word of a mere stranger to satisfy you that I have the 
authority of George of Douglas for possessing myself of 
the packet entrusted to your charge.” 

“ It is precisely the point on which I demand reckoning 
of you,” said Roland. “ I fear I have acted hastily ; if so, 

I must redeem my error as 1 best may.” 

“You hold me then as a perfect stranger?” said the 
man. “ Look at my face more attentively, and see if the 
features do not resemble those of a man much known to 
you formerly.” 

Roland gazed attentively ; but the ideas recalled to his 
mind were so inconsistent with the mean and servile dress 
of the person before him, that he did not venture to ex- 
press the opinion which he was irresistibly induced to 

“Yes, my son,” said the stranger, observing his embar- 
rassment, “you do indeed see before you the unfortunate 
Father Ambrosius, who once accounted his ministry 
crowned in your preservation from the snares of heresy, 
but who is now condemned to lament thee as a castaway ! 

Roland Grseme’s kindness of heart was at least equal to 
his vivacity of temper — he could not bear to see his ancient 
and honored master and spiritual guide in a situation which 
inferred a change of fortune so melancholy, but throwing 
himself at his feet, grasped his knees and wept aloud 

“ What mean these tears, my son ? ” said the Abbot ; 
“ if they arc shed for your own sins and follies, surely they 
are gracious showers, and may avail thee much but, weep 
not, if they fall on my account. You indeed see the Supe- 

20 


3o6 


ri!!-: AB/WT. 

rior of the community of Saint Mary’s in the dress of a 
poor sworder, who gives his master the use of his blade 
and buckler, and if needful, of his life, for a coarse livery 
coat, and four marks by the year. But such a garb suits 
the time, and, in the period of tlie church militant, as well 
becomes her prelates as stafi, mitre, and crosier, in the days 
of the church’s triumph.” 

“ By what fate,” said the page — “ and yet why,” added 
he, checking himself, “ need I ask ? Catherine Seyton in 
some sort prepared me for this. But that the change 

should be so absolute — the destruction so complete ! ” 

“Yes, my son,” said the Abbot Ambrosius, “thine own 
eyes behold, in my unworthy elevation to the Abbot’s stall, 
the last especial act of holy solemnity which shall be seen 
in the church of Saint Mary’s until it shall please Heaven 
to turn back the captivity of the church. For the present, 
the shepherd is smitten — ay, well-nigh to the earth — the 
flock are scattered, and the shrines of saints and martyrs, 
and pious benefactors to the church, are given to the owls 
of night, and the satyrs of the desert.” 

“ And your brother the Knight of Avenel — could he do 
nothing for your protection ? ” 

“ He himself hath fallen under the suspicion of the rul- 
ing powers,” said the Abbot, “who are as unjust to their 
friends as they are cruel to their enemies. I could not 
grieve at it, did I hope it might estrange him from his 
cause ; but I know the soiil of Halbert, and I rather fear 
it will drive him to prove his fidelity to their unhappy 
cause by some deed which may be yet more destructive 
to the church, and more offensive to Heaven. Enough of 
this ; and now to the business of our meeting — I trust you 
will hold it sufficient if I pass my word to you that the 
packet of which you were lately the bearer was designed 
for my hands by George of Douglas ? ” 

“ Then,” said the page, “ is George of Douglas ” 

“A true friend to his Queen, Roland ; and will soon, I 
trust, liave his eyes opened to the errors of his (miscalled) 
church.” 

“ But what is he to his father, and what to the Lady of 
Lochleven, who has been as a mother to him ? ” said the 
page, impatiently. 

“ The best friend to both, in time and through eternity,” 
said the Abbot, “ if he shall prove the happy instrument for 
redeeming the evil they have wrought, and are still work- 


THE ABBOT. 


307 


“Still,” said the page, “I like not that good service 
which begins in breach of trust.” 

“ I blame not thy scruples, my son,” said the Abbot ; 
“ but the time which has wrenched asunder the allegiance 
of Christians to the church, and of subjects to their king, 
has dissolved all the lesser bonds of society ; and, in such 
days, mere human ties must no more restrain our progress 
than the brambles and briers which catch hold of his gar- 
ments should delay the path of a pilgrim who travels to 
pay his vows.” 

“ But, my father,” said the youth, and then stopped 
short in a hesitating manner. 

“Speak on, my son,” said the Abbot; “speak without 
fear.” 

“ Let me not offend you then,” said Roland, “ when I say, 
that it is even this which our adversaries charge against us, 
when they say that, shaping the means according to the 
end, we are willing to commit great moral evil in order 
that we may work out eventual good.” 

“ The heretics have played their usual arts on you, my 
son,” said the Abbot ; “ they would willingly deprive us of 
the power of acting wisely and secretly, though their pos- 
session of superior force forbids our contending with them 
on the terms of equality. They have reduced us to a state 
of exhausted w’^eakness, and would fain proscribe the means 
by which weakness, through all the range of nature, sup- 
plies the lack of strength, and defends itself against its 
potent enemies. As well might the hound say to the hare, 
use not these wily turns to escape me, but contend with 
me in pitched battle, as the armed and powerful heretic 
demand of the down-trodden and oppressed Catholic to lay 
aside the wisdom of the serpent, by which alone they may 
again hope to raise up the Jerusalem over which they weep, 
and which it is their duty to rebuild — But more of this 
hereafter. And now, my son, I command thee on thy faith 
to tell me truly and particularly what has chanced to thee 
since we parted, and what is the present state of thy con- 
science. Thy relation, our sister Magdalen, is a woman of 
excellent gifts, blessed*with a zeal which neither doubt nor 
danger can quench ; but yet it is not a zeal altogether ac- 
cording to knowledge ; wherefore, my son, I would wil- 
lingly be myself thy interrogator and thy counsellor, in 
these days of darkness and stratagem.” 

With the respect which he owed to his first instructor, 
Roland Grseme went rapidly through tlie events which the 


3o8 


THE ABBOT. 


reader is acquainted with ; and while he disguised not 
from the prelate the impression which had been made on 
his mind by the arguments of the preacher Henderson, he 
accidentally and almost involuntarily gave his Father Con- 
fessor to understand the influence which Catherine Seyton 
had acquired over his mind. 

“ It is with joy I discover, my dearest son,” replied the 
Abbot, “ that I have arrived in time to arrest thee on the 
verge of the precipice to which thou wert approaching. 
These doubts of which you complain are the weeds -which 
naturally grow up in a strong soil, and require the careful 
hand of the husbandman to eradicate them. Thou must 
study a little volume, which I wall impart to thee in fitting 
time, in which, by Our Lady’s grace, I have placed in some- 
what a clearer light than heretofore the points debated 
betwixt us and these heretics, who sow among the wheat 
the same tares which were formerly privily mingled with 
the good seed by the Albigenses and the Lollards. But it 
is not by reason alone that you must hope to conquer these 
insinuations of the enemy : it is sometimes by timely re- 
sistance, but oftener by timely flight. You must shut your 
ears against the arguments of the heresiarch when circum- 
stances permit you not to withdraw the foot from his com- 
pany. Anchor your tjhoughts upon the service of Our 
Lady while he is expending in vain his heretical sophistry. 
Are you unable to maintain your attention on heavenly 
objects— think rather on thine own earthly pleasures than 
tempt Providence and the Saints by giving an attentive ear 
to_ the erring doctrine — think of thy hawk, thy hound, 
thine angling-rod, thy sword and buckler — think even of 
Catherine Seyton, rather than give thy soul to the lessons 
of the tempter. Alas ! my son, believe not that, worn out 
with woes, and bent more by affliction than by years, I 
have forgotten the effect of beauty over the heart of youth. 
Even in the watches of the night, broken by thoughts of 
an imprisoned Queen, a distracted kingdom, a church laid 
waste and ruinous, come other thoughts than these sug- 
gest, and feelings which belonged to an earlier and hap- 
pier course of life. Be it so, we mifst bear our load as we 
may : and not in vain are these passions implanted in our 
breast, since, as now in thy case, they may come in aid of 
resolutions founded upon higher grounds. Yet, beware, 
my son — -This Catherine Seyton is the daughter of one of 
Scotland’s proudest, as well as most worthy, barons ; and 
thy state may not suffer thee, as yet, to aspire so high. 


THE ABBOT. 


309 


But thus it is — Heaven works its purposes through human 
folly ; and Douglas’s ambitious affection, as well as thine, 
shall contribute alike to the desired end.” 

“ How, my father,” said the page, “ my suspicions are 
then true ! — Douglas loves” 

“ He does ; and with a lov’^e as much misplaced as thine 
own ; but beware of him — cross him not — thwart him not.” 

“ Let him not cross or thwart me,” said the page ; “for 
I will not yield him an inch of way, liad he in his body the 
soul of every Douglas that has lived since the time of the 
Dark Gray Man.” ^ 

“ Nay, have patience, idle boy, and reflect that your suit 
can never interfere with his. But a truce with these vani- 
ties, and let us better employ the little space which still 
remains to us to spend together. To thy knees, my son, 
and resume the long-interrupted duty of confession, that, 
happen what may, the hour may find in thee a faithful 
Catholic, relieved from the guilt of his sins by authority of 
the Holy Church. Could I but tell thee, Roland, the joy 
with which I see thee once more put thy knee to its best 
and fittest use ? Quid dicis^ mi filiV' 

“ Culpas measP answered the youth ; and, according to 
the ritual of the Catholic Church, he confessed and re- 
ceived absolution, to which was annexed the condition of 
performing certain enjoined penances. 

When this religious ceremony was ended, an old man, 
in the dress of a peasant of the better order, approached 
the arbor, and greeted the Abbot. “ I have waited the 
conclusion of «your devotions,” he said, “to tell you the 
youth is sought after by the chamberlain, and it were well 
he should appear without delay. Holy Saint Francis, if 
the halberdiers were to seek him here, they might sorely 
wrong my garden-plot — they are in office, and reck not 
where they tread, were each step on jessamine and clove- 
gillyflowers.” 

“We will speed him forth, my brother,” said the Abbot, 
“but alas! is it possible that such trifles should live in 
your mind at a crisis so awful as that which is now im- 
pending ? ” 

* By an ancient, though improbable, tradition, the Douglases are said to 
have derived their name from a champion who had greatly distinguished 
himself in an action. When the king demanded by whom the battle had 
been v.’on, the attendants arc said to have answered, “ Sholto Douglas, 
sir ; ” which is said to mean, “Yonder dark gray man.” But the name is 
undoubtedly territorial, and taken frer.: Douglas river and vale.” 


310 


THE ABBOT. 


“ Reverend father,” answered the proprietor of the gar- 
den, for such he was, “ how oft shall I pray you to keep 
your high counsel for high minds like your own ? Wliat 
have you required of me that I have not granted unresist- 
ingly, though with an aching heart ? ” 

“ I would require of you to be yourself, my brother,” 
said the Abbot Ambrosius ; “ to remember what you were, 
and to what your early vows have bound you.” 

I tell thee. Father Ambrosius,” replied the gardener, 
“ the patience of the best saint that ever said paternoster 
would be exhausted by the trials to which you have 
put mine — What I have been, it skills not to speak at 
present — no one knows better than yourself, father, what 
I renounced, in hopes to find ease and quiet during the 
remainder of my days — and no one better knows how my 
retreat has been invaded, my fruit trees broken, my flower 
beds trodden down, my quiet frightened away, and my 
very sleep driven from my bed, since ever this poor Queen, 
God bless her, hath been sent to Lochleven. I blame her 
not ; being a prisoner, it is natural she should wish to get 
out from so vile a hold, where there is scarcely any place 
even for a tolerable garden, and where the water-mists, as 
I am told, bliglit all the early blossoms — I say I cannot 
blame her for endeavoring for her freedom ; but why I 
should be drawn into the scheme — why my harmless arbors, 
that I planted with my own hands, should become places 
of privy conspiracy — why my little quay, which I built for 
my own fishing-boat, should have become a haven for 
secret embarkations — in short, why I should be dragged 
into matters where both heading and hanging are like to 
be the issue, I profess to you, reverend father, I am totally 
ignorant.” 

“My brother,” answered the Abbot, “you are wise, and 
ought to know ” 

“ I am not — I am not — I am not wise,” replied the hor- 
ticulturist, pettishly, and stopping his ears with his fingers 
— “I was never called wise but when men wanted to en- 
gage me in some action of notorious folly.” 

“ But, my good brother” said the Abbot. 

“I am not good neither,” said the peevish gardener; 
“ I am neither good nor wise. Had I been wise, you would 
not have been admitted here ; and were I good, methinks 
I should send you elsewhere to hatch plots for destroying 
the quiet of the country. What signifies disputing about 
queen or king, when men may sit in peace — sub umbra intis 


THE ABBOT. 




suil and so would I do, after the precept of Holy Writ, 
were I, as you term me, wise or good. But such as I am, 
my neck is in the yoke, and you make me draw what 
weight you list. Follow me, youngster. This reverend 
father, who makes in his jackman’s dress nearly as rever- 
end a figure as I myself, will agree with me in one thing 
at least, and that is, that you have been long enough 
here.” 

“ Follow the good father, Roland,” said the Abbot, 
“ and remember my words — a day is approaching that will 
try the temper of all true Scotsmen— may thy heart prove 
faithful as the steel of thy blade ! ” 

The page bowed in silence, and they parted, the gar- 
dener, notwithstanding his advanced age, walking on before 
him very briskly, and muttering as he went, partly to him- 
self, partly to his companion, after the manner of old men 
of weakened intellects— “ When I was great,” thus ran his 
maundering, “ and had my mule and my ambling palfrey 
at command, I warrant you I could have as well flown 
through the air as have walked at this pace. I had my 
gout and my rheumatics, and a hundred things besides, 
that hung fetters on my heels ; and now, thanks to Our 
Lady and honest labor, I can walk with any good man of 
my age in the kingdom of Fife — Fy upon it, that experi- 
ence should be so long in coming ! ” 

As he was thus muttering his eye fell upon the branch 
of a pear-tree which drooped down for want of support, 
and at once forgetting his haste, the old man stopped and 
set seriously about binding it up. Roland Graeme had 
both readiness, neatness of hand, and good nature in abun- 
dance ; he immediately lent his aid, and in a minute or two 
the bough was supported and tied up in a way perfectly 
satisfactory to the old man, who looked at it witli great 
complaisance. “They are bergamots,” he said, “and if 
you will come ashore in autumn you shall taste of them — 
the like are not in Lochleven Castle— the garden there is 
a poor pin-fold, and the gardener, Hugh Houkham, hath 
little skill of his craft— so come ashore. Master Page, in 
autumn, when you would eat pears. But what am I think- 
ing of— ere that time come, they may have given thee sour 
pears for plums. Take an old man’s advice, youth, one 
who hath seen many days, and sat in higher places than 
thou canst hope for— bend thy sword into a pruning hook, 
and make a dibble of thy dagger— thy days shall be the 
longer, and thy health the better for it— and come to aid 


312 


THE ABBOT. 


me in my garden, and I will teach thee the real French 
fashion of impinge which the Southron call graffing. Do 
this, and do it without loss of time, for there is a whirl- 
wind coming over the land, and only those shall escape 
who lie too much beneath the storm to have their boughs 
broken by it.” 

So saying, he dismissed Roland Grseme through a dif- 
ferent door from that by which he had entered, signed a 
cross, and pronounced a benedicite as they parted, and 
then, still muttering to himself, retired into the garden 
and locked the door on the inside. 


CHAPTER TWENTY-NINTH. 

Pray God she prove not masculine ere long ! 

King Henry VI. 

Dismissed from the old man’s garden, Roland Graeme 
found that a grassy paddock, in which sauntered two cows, 
the property of the gardener, still separated him from the 
village. He paced through it, lost in meditation upon the 
words of the Abbot. Father Ambrosius had, with success 
enough, exerted over him that powerful influence’ which 
the guardians and instructors of our childhood possess over 
our more mature youth. And yet, when Roland looked 
back upon what the father had said, he could not but sus- 
pect that he had rather sought to evade entering into the 
controversy betwixt the churches, than to repel the objec- 
tions and satisfy the doubts which the lectures of Hender- 
son had excited. “ For this he had no time,” said the page 
to himself, ‘‘neither have I now calmness and learning 
sufficient to judge upon points of such magnitude. Besides, 
it were base to quit my faith while the wind of fortune sets 
against it, unless I were so placed that my conversion, 
should it take place, were free as light from the imputation 
of self-interest. I was bred a Catholic — bred in the faith 
of Bruce and Wallace— I will hold that faith till time and 
reason shall convince me that it errs. I will serve this 
poor Queen as a subject should serve an imprisoned and 
wronged sovereign— they who placed me in her service 
have to blame themselves— who sent me hither, a gentle- 
man trained in the paths of loyalty and honor, when they 
should have sought out some truckling, cogging, double^ 


THE ABBOT. 


313 


dealing knave, who would have been at once the observant 
page of the Queen, and the obsequious spy of her enemies. 
Since I must choose betwixt aiding and betraying lier, I 
will decide as becomes her servant and her subject ; but 
Catherine Seyton — Catherine Seyton, beloved by Douglas, 
and holding me on or off as the intervals of her leisure or 
caprice will permit — how shall I deal witli the coquette ? — 
By Heaven, when I next have an opportunity, she shall 
render me some reason for her conduct, or I will break 
Avith her forever ! ” 

As he formed this doughty resolution, he crossed the 
stile which led out of the little enclosure, and was almost 
immediately greeted by Dr. Luke Lundin. 

“ Ha ! my most excellent young friend,” said the Doc- 
tor, “ from whence come you ? — but I note the place. Yes, 
neighbor Blinkhoolie’s garden is a pleasant rendezvous, 
and you are of the age when lads look after a bonny lass 
with one eye, and a dainty plum with another. But hey ! 
you look subtriste and melancholic — I fear the maiden 
has proved cruel, or the plums unripe ; surely, I think 
neighbor Blinkhoolie’s damsons can scarcely have been 
well preserved throughout the winter — he spares the sac- 
charine juice on his confects. But courage, man, there 
are more Kates in Kinross ; and for the immature fruit, a 
glass of my double -distilled aqua 7nirabilis—probatum est." 

The page darted an ireful glance at the facetious physi- 
cian ; but presently recollecting that the name Kate, which 
had provoked his displeasure, was probably but intro- 
duced for the sake of alliteration, he suppressed his wrath, 
and only asked if the wains had been heard of. 

“Why, I have been seeking for you this hour, to tell 
you that the stuff is in your boat, and that the boat Avaits 
your pleasure. Auchtermuchty had only fallen into com- 
pany AAUth an idle knave like himself, and a stoup of 
aquaA’itse between them. Your boatmen lie on their oars, 
and there have already been made two wefts from the Avar- 
der’s turret to intimate that those in the castle are impa- 
tient for your return. Yet there is time for you to take a 
slight repast ; and, as your friend and physician, I hold it 
unfit you should face the Avater breeze Avith an empty 
stomach.” 

Roland Grseme had nothing for it but to return, Avith 
such cheer as he might, to the place where his boat Avas 
moored on the beach, and resisted all offer of refreshment, 
although the Doctor promised that lie- should prelude the 


3^4 


THE ABBOT. 


collation with a gentle appetizer — a decoction of herbs, 
gathered and distilled by himself. Indeed, as Roland had 
not forgotten the contents of his morning cup, it is pos- 
sible that the recollection induced him to stand firm in his 
refusal of all food, to which an unpalatable preface was the 
preliminary. As they passed toward the boat (for the cere- 
monious politeness of the worthy Chamberlain would not 
permit the page to go thither without attendance), Roland 
Graeme, amidst a group who seemed to be assembled 
around a party of wandering musicians, distinguished, as 
he thought, the dress of Catherine Seyton. He shook 
himself clear from his attendant, and at one spring was in 
the midst of the crowd, and at the side of the damsel. 

“ Catherine,” he whispered, “ is it well for you to be still 
here ? — will you not return to the castle ? ” 

“ To the devil with your Catherines and your castles ! ” 
answered the maiden, snappishly ; “ have you not had time 
enough already to get rid of your follies ? Begone ! I de- 
sire not your farther company, and there will be danger in 
thrusting it upon me.” 

“ Nay — but if there be danger, fairest Catherine,” replied 
Roland, ‘‘ why will you not allow me to stay and share it 
with you ? ” 

“ Intruding fool,” said the maiden, “ the danger is all on 
thine own side — the risk is, in plain terms, that I strike thee 
on the mouth with the hilt of my dagger.” So saying, she 
turned haughtily from him, and moved through the crowd, 
who gave way in some astonishment nt the masculine ac- 
tivity with which she forced her way among them. ; 

As Roland, though much irritated, prepared to follow, ■ 
he was grappled on the other side by Doctor Luke Lun- ; 
din, who reminded him of the loaded boat, of the two v 
wefts, or signals with the flag, which had been made from : 
the tower, of the danger of the cold breeze to an empty j 
stomach, and of the vanity of spending more time upon 
coy wenches and sour plums. Roland was thus in a man- 
ner dragged back to his boat, and obliged to launch her 
forth upon his return to Lochleven Castle. ' 

The little voyage was speedily accomplished, and the J 
page was greeted at the landing-place by the severe and ! 
caustic welcome of old Dryfesdale. “So, young gallant, 
you are come at last, after a delay of six hours, and after 
two signals from the castle ? But, I warrant some idle 
junketing has occupied you too deeply to think of your 
service, or your duty. Where is the note of the plate and 


THE ABBOT. 


315 


household stuff ? Pray Heaven it hath not been dimin- 
ished under the sleeveless care of so young a gad-about ! ” 

“ Diminished under my care, Sir Steward ’ ” retorted the 
page, angrily ; “ say so in earnest, and, by Heaven, your 
gray hair shall hardly protect your saucy tongue ! ” 

“A truce with your swaggering, young esquire,” re- 
turned the steward; “we haVe bolts and dungeons for 
brawlers. Go to my lady, and swagger before her, if thou 
darest — she will give thee proper cause of offence, for she 
has waited for thee long and impatiently.” 

“And where then is the Lady of Lochleven?” said the 
page ; “ for I conceive it is of her thou speakest.” 

“Ay — of whom else ?” replied Dryfesdale, “or who be- 
sides the Lady of Lochleven hath a right to command in 
this castle ? ” 

“The Lady of Lochleven is thy mistress,” said Roland 
Graeme ; “ but mine is the Queen of Scotland.” 

The steward looked at him fixedly for a moment, with an 
air in which suspicion and dislike were ill-concealed by an 
affectation of contempt. “The bragging cock-chicken,” 
he said, “ will betray himself by his rash crowing. I have 
marked thy altered manner in the chapel of late — ay, and 
your changing of glances at meal-time with a certain idle 
damsel, who, like thyself, laughs at all gravity and good- 
ness. There is something about you, my master, which 
should be looked to. But, if you would know whether the 
Lady of Lochleven, or that other lady, hath a right to com- 
mand thy service, thou wilt find them together in the Lady 
Mary’s anteroom.” 

Roland hastened thither, not unwilling to escape from 
the ill-natured penetration of the old man, and marvelling 
at the same time what peculiarity could have occasioned 
the Lady of Lochleven’s being in the Queen’s apartment 
at this time of the afternoon, so much contrary to her usual 
wont. His acuteness instantly penetrated the meaning. 

^ “ She wishes,” he concluded, “ to see the meeting betwixt 
the Queen and me on my return, that she may form a 
guess whether there is any private intelligence or under- 
standing betwixt us — I must be guarded.” 

With this resolution he entered the parlor, where the 
Queen, seated in her chair, with the Lady Fleming leaning 
upon the back of it, had already kept the Lady of Loch- 
leven standing in her presence for the space of nearly an 
hour, to the manifest increase of her very visible bad 
humor. Roland Graeme, on entering the apartment, made 


THE ABBOT. 


316 

a deep obeisance to the Queen, and another to the Lady, 
and then stood still as if to await their farther question. 
Speaking almost together, the Lady Lochleven said, “ So, 
young man, you are returned at length ? ” 

And then stopped indignantly short, while the Queen 
went on without regarding her — “ Roland, you are wel- 
come home to us — you have proved the true dove, and not 
the raven— Yet I am sure I could have forgiven you, if, 
once dismissed from this water-circled ark of ours, you had 
never again returned to us. I trust you have brought back 
an olive-branch, for our kind and worthy hostess has chafed 
herself much on account of your long absence, and we never 
needed more some symbol of peace and reconciliation.” 

“I grieve I should have been detained, madam,” an- 
swered the page; “but from the delay of the person en- 
trusted with the matters for which I was sent, I did not 
receive them till late in the day-” 

“ See you there now,” said the Queen to the Lady Loch- 
leven ; “ we could not persuade you, our dearest hostess, 
that your household goods were in all safe keeping and 
surety. True it is, that we can excuse your anxiety, con- 
sidering that these august apartments are so scantily fur- 
nished that we have not been able to offer you even the 
relief of a stool during the long time you have afforded us 
the pleasure of your society.” 

“ The will, madam,” said the lady, “ the will to offer such 
accommodation was more wanting than the means.” 

“What!” said the Queen, looking round, and affecting 
surprise, “there are then stools in this apartment— one, 
t^vo — no less than four, including the broken one — a royal 
garniture! We observed them not — will it please your 
ladyship to sit ?” 

“No, madam, I will soon relieve you of my presence,” 
replied the Lady Lochleven ; “ and while with you, my 
aged limbs can still better brook fatigue than my mind 
stoop to accept constrained courtesy.” 

“ Nay, Lady of Lochleven, if you 'take it so deeply,” said 
the Queen, rising and motioning to her own vacant chair, 
“I would rather you assume my seat — you are not the first 
of your family who has done so.” 

The Lady of Lochleven courtesied a negative, but seemed 
witli much difficulty to suppress the angry answer which 
rose to her lips. 

During this sharp conversation, the page’s attention had 
been almost entirelv occupied bv the ent»-ance of Catherine 


THE ABBOT. 


317 

Seyton, who came from the inner apartment, in the usual 
dress in wliich she attended upon the Queen, and with 
nothing in her manner which marked either the hurry or 
confusion incident to a hasty change of disguise, or the 
conscious fear of detection in a perilous enterprise. Ro- 
land Graeme ventured to make her an obeisance as she 
entered, but she returned it with an air of the utmost in- 
difference, which, in his opinion, was extremely inconsist- 
ent with the circumstances in which they stood toward 
each other. “Surely,” he thought, “she cannot in reason 
expect to bully me out of the belief due to mine own eyes, 
as she tried to do concerning the apparition in the hostlery 
of Saint Michael’s — I will try if I cannot make her feel that 
this will be but a vain task, and that confidence in me is 
the wiser and safer course to pursue.” 

These thoughts had passed rapidly through his mind, 
when the Queen, having finished her altercation with the 
Lady of the castle, again addressed him — “ What of the 
revels at Kinross, Roland Graeme ? Methought they were 
gay, if I may judge from some faint sounds of mirth and 
distant music, which found their way so far as these grated 
windows, and died when they entered them, as all that is 
mirthful must — But thou lookest as sad as if thou hadst 
come from a conventicle of the Huguenots ! ” 

“ And so perchance he hath, madam,” replied the Lady 
of Lochleven, at whom this side-shaft was launched. “ I 
trust, amid yonder idle fooleries, there wanted not some 
pouring forth of doctrine to a better purpose than that 
vain mirth, which, blazing and vanishing like the crack- 
ling of dry thorns, leaves to the fools who love it nothing 
but dust and ashes.” 

“ Mary Fleming,” said the Queen, turning round and 
drawing her mantle about her, “ I would that we had the 
chimney-grate supplied with a faggot or two of these same 
thorns which the Lady of Lochleven describes so well. 
Methinks the damp air from the lake, which stagnates in 
these vaulted rooms, renders them deadly cold.” 

“Your Grace’s pleasure shall be obeyed,” said the Lady 
of Lochleven ; “ yet may I presume to remind you that we 
are now in summer ? ” 

“I thank you for the information, my good lady,” said 
the Queen ; “ for prisoners better learn their calendar from 
the mouth of their jailer, than from any change they them- 
selves feel in the seasons. — Once more, Roland Graeme, 
what of the revels ? ” 


riiE .IBB or. 


“ They were gay, madam,” said the page, “ but of the 
usual sort, and little worth your Highness’s ear.” 

“Oh, you know not,” said the Queen, “how very indul- 
gent my ear has become to all that speaks of freedom and 
the pleasures of the free. Methinks I would rather have 
seen the gay villagers dance tlieir ring round the May-pole, 
than have witnessed the most stately masks within the .pre- 
cincts of a palace. The absence of stone wall — the sense 
that the green turf is under tlie foot which may tread it 
free and unrestrained, is worth all that art or splendor can 
add to more courtly revels.” 

“ I trust,” said the Lady Lochleven, addressing the page 
in her turn, “ there were amongst these follies- none of the 
riots or disturbances to which they so naturally lead ?” 

Roland gave a slight glance to Catherine Seyton, as if to 
bespeak her attention, as he replied — “I witnessed no 
offence, madam, worthy of marking — none indeed of any 
kind, save that a bold damsel made her hand somewhat 
too familiar with the cheek of a player-man, and ran some 
hazard of being ducked in the lake.” 

As he uttered these words he cast a hasty glance at 
Catherine ; but siie sustained, with the utmost serenity of 
manner and countenance, the hint which he had deemed 
could not have been thrown out before her without excit- 
ing some fear and confusion. 

“ I will cumber your Grace no longer with my presence,” 
said the Lady Lochleven, “ unless you have aught to com- 
mand me.” 

“Naught, our good hostess,” answered the Queen, “un- 
less it be to pray you, that on another occasion you deem 
it not needful to postpone your better employment to wait 
so long upon us.” 

“ May it please you,” added the Lady Lochleven, “ to 
command this your gentleman to attend us, that I may 
receive some account of these matters which have been 
sent hither for your Grace’s use.” 

“We may not refuse what you are pleased to require, 
madam,” answered the Queen. “Go with the lady, Ro- 
land, if our commands be indeed necessary to thv doing 
so. We will hear to-morrow the history of thy 'Kinross 
pleasures. For this night we dismiss thy attendance.” 

Roland Graeme went with the Lady of Lochleven, who 
failed not to ask him many questions concerning what had 
passed at the sports, to which he rendered such answers as 
w^ere most likely to lull asleep any suspicions which she 


THE ABBOT. 


319 

might entertain of his disposition to favor Queen Mary, 
taking especial care to avoid all allusions to the apparition 
of Magdalen Graeme, and of the Abbot Ambrosius. At 
length, after undergoing a long and somewhat close exam- 
ination, he was dismissed with such expressions as, com- 
ing from the reserved and stern Lady of Lochleven, might 
seem to express a degree of favor and countenance. 

His first care was to obtain some refreshment, which was 
more cheerfully afforded him by a good-natured pantler 
than by Dryfesdale, who was on this occasion much dis- 
posed to abide by the fashion of Pudding-burn House, 
where 

They who came not the first call, 

Gat no more meat till the next meaL 

When Roland Graeme had finished his repast, having his 
dismissal from the Queen for the evening, and being little 
inclined for such society as the castle afforded, he stole 
into the garden, in which he had permission to spend his 
leisure time when it pleased him. In this place the inge- 
nuity of the contriver and disposer of the walks had ex- 
erted itself to make the most of little space, and by screens, 
both of stone ornamented with rude sculpture and hedges 
of living green, had endeavored to give as much intricacy 
and variety as the confined limits of the garden would 
admit. 

Here the young man walked sadly, considering the 
events of the day, and comparing what had dropped from 
the Abbot with what he had himself noticed of the de- 
meanor of George Douglas. “ It must be so,’ w’as the 
painful but inevitable conclusion at which he arrived. “ It 
must be by his aid that she is thus enabled, like a phantom, 
to transport herself from place to place, and to appear at 
pleasure on the mainland or on the islet. It must be so, 
he repeated once more; ‘‘with him she holds a close, 
secret, and intimate correspondence, altogether inconsist- 
ent with the eye of favor which she has sometimes cast 
upon me, and destructive to the hopes which she ^ must 
have known these glances have necessarily inspired.” And 
yet (for love will hope where reason despairs) the thought 
rushed on his mind that it was possible she only encour- 
aged Douglas’s passion so far as might serve her mistress’s 
interest, and that she was of too frank, noble, and candid 
a nature to hold out to himself hopes which she meant not 
to fulfil. Lost in these various conjectures, he seated him- 


320 


THE ABBOT. 


self upon a bank of turf which commanded a view of the 
lake on the one side, and on the other of that front of the 
castle along which the Queen’s apartments were situated. 

The sun had now for some time set, and the twilight of 
May was rapidly falling into a serene night. On the lake 
the expanded water rose and fell, with the slightest and 
softest influence of a southern breeze, which scarcely 
dimpled the surface over which it passed. In the distance 
was still seen the dim outline of the island of Saint Serf, 
once visited by many a sandalled pilgrim, as the blessed 
spot trodden by a man of God— now neglected or violated, 
as the refuge of lazy priests, who had with justice been 
compelled to give place to the sheep and the heifers of a 
Protestant baron. 

As Roland gazed on the dark speck amid the lighter blue 
of the waters which surrounded it, the mazes of polemi- 
cal discussion again stretched themselves before the eye 
of his mind. Had these men justly suffered their exile as 
licentious drones, the robbers, at once, and disgrace of the 
busy hive ? or had the hand of avarice and rapine expelled 
from the temple, not the ribalds who polluted, but the 
faithful priests who served the shrine in honor and fidelity ? 
The arguments of Henderson, in this contemplative hour, 
rose with double force before him, and could scarcely be 
parried by the appeal which the Abbot Ambrosius had 
made from his understanding to his feelings — an appeal 
which he had felt more forcibly amid the bustle of stirring 
life than now, when his reflections were more undisturbed 
It required an effort to divert his mind from this embarrass- 
ing topic ; and he found that he best succeeded by turning 
his eyes to the front of the tower, watching where a twink- 
ling light still streamed from the casement of Catherine 
Seyton’s apartment, obscured by times for a moment as 
the shadow of the fair inhabitant passed betwixt the taper 
and the window. At length the light was removed or ex- 
tinguished, and that object of speculation was also with- 
drawn from the eyes of the meditative lover. Dare I con- 
fess the fact, without injuring his character forever as a 
hero of romance? These eyes gradually became heavy; 
speculative doubts on the subject of religious controversv, 
and anxious conjectures concerning the state of his mis- 
tiess s affections, became confusedly blended together in 
his musings ; the fatigues of a busy day prevailed over the 
harassing subjects of contemplation which occupied his 
mind, and he fell fast asleep. 


THE ABBOT. 


321 


Sound were his slumbers, until they were suddenly dis- 
pelled by the iron tongue of the castle bell, which sent its 
deep and sullen sounds wide over the bosom of the lake, 
and awakened the echoes of Bennarty, the hill which de- 
scends steeply on its southern bank. Roland started up, 
for this bell was always tolled at ten o’clock, as the signal 
for locking the castle gates and placing the keys under 
the charge of the seneschal. He therefore hastened to the 
wicket by which the garden communicated with the build- 
ing, and had the mortification, just as he reached it, to hear 
the bolt leave its sheath with a discordant crash, and enter 
the stone groove of the door-lintel. 

“Hold, hold,” cried the page, “and let me in ere you 
lock the wicket.” 

The voice of Dryfesdale replied from within, in his usual 
tone of imbittered sullenness, “ The hour is passed, fair 
master — you like not the inside of these walls — even make 
it a complete holiday, and spend the night as well as the 
day out of bounds.” 

“Open the door,” exclaimed the indignant page, “or, 
by Saint Giles, I will make thy gold chain smoke for 
it ! ” 

“ Make no alarm here,” retorted the impenetrable Dry- 
fesdale, “but keep thy sinful oaths and silly threats for 
those that regard them — I do mine office, and carry the 
keys to the seneschal. — Adieu, my young master! the cool 
night air will advantage your hot blood.” 

The steward was right in what he said; for the cooling 
breeze was very necessary to appease the feverish fit of 
anger which Roland experienced, nor did the remedy suc- 
ceed for some time. At length, after some hasty turns 
made through the garden, exhausting his passion in vain 
vows of vengeance, Roland Graeme began to be sensible 
that his situation ought rather to be held as a matter of 
laughter than of serious resentment. To one bred a sports- 
man, a night spent in the open air had in it little of hard- 
ship, and the poor malice of the steward seemed more 
worthy of his contempt than his anger. “ I would to God,” 
he said, “ that the grim old man may always have con- 
tented himself with such sportive revenge. He often looks 
as he were capable of doing us a darker turn.” Returning, 
therefore, to the turf-seat, which he had formerly occupied, 
and which was partially sheltered by a trim fence of green 
holly, he drew his mantle around him, stretched himself 
at length on the verdant settle, and endeavored to resume 


21 


322 


THE ABBOT. 


that sleep which the castle bell had interrupted to so little 
purpose. 

Sleep, like other earthly blessings, is niggard of its fa- 
vors when most courted. The more Roland invoked her 
aid, the farther she fled from his eyelids. He had been 
completely awakened, first, by the sounds of the bell, and 
then by his own aroused vivacity of temper, and he found 
it difficult again to compose himself to slumber. At length, 
when his mind was wearied out with a maze of unpleasing 
meditation, he succeeded in coaxing himself into a broken 
slumber. This was again dispelled by the voices of two 
persons who were walking in the garden, the sound of 
whose conversation, after mingling for some time in the 
page’s dreams, at length succeeded in awaking him thor- 
oughly. He raised himself from his reclining posture in 
the utmost astonishment, which the circumstance of hear- 
ing two persons at that late hour conversing on the outside 
of the watchfully guarded Castle of Lochleven was so well 
calculated to excite. His first thought was of supernatural 
being's ; his next, upon some attempt on the part of Queen 
Mary’s friends and followers ; his last w^as, that George of 
Douglas, possessed of the keys, and having the means of 
ingress and egress at pleasure, was availing himself of his 
office to hold a rendezvous with Catherine Seyton in the 
castle garden. He was confirmed in this opinion by the 
tone of the voice, which asked in a low whisper, “ whether 
all was ready ? ” 


CHAPTER THIRTIETH. 

In some breasts passion lies conceal’d and silent. 

Like war’s swart powder in a castle vault, 

Until occasion, like the linstock, lights it : 

Then comes at once the lightning and the thunder. 

And distant echoes tell that all is rent asunder. 

Old Play. 

Roland Gr^me, availing himself of a breach in the holly 
screen, and of the assistance of the full moon, which was 
now arisen, had a perfect opportunity, himself unobserved, 
to reconnoitre the persons and the motions of those by 
whom his rest had been thus unexpectedly disturbed ; and 
his observations confirmed his jealous apprehensions. 
They stood together in close and earnest conversation 


THE ABBOT. 


3^3 


within four yards of the place of liis retreat, and he could 
easily recognize the tall form and deep voice of Douglas, 
and the no less remarkable dress and tone of the page at 
the hostlery of Saint Michael’s. 

“ I have been at the door of the page’s apartment,” said 
Douglas, “ but he is not there, or he will not answer. It 
is fast bolted on the inside, as is the custom, and we cannot 
pass through it — and what his silence may bode I know not.” 

“You have trusted him too far,” said the other ; “a 
feather-headed coxcomb, upon whose changeable mind 
and hot brain there is no making an abiding impression.” 

“ It was not I who was willing to trust him,” said Doug- 
las ; “but I was assured he would prove friendly when 

called upon — for” Here he spoke so low that Roland 

lost the tenor of his words, which was the more provoking, 
as he was fully aware that he was himself the subject of 
their conversation. 

“ Nay,” replied the stranger, more aloud, “I have on my 
side put him off with fair words, which make fools fain — 
but now, if you distrust him at the push, deal with him 
with your dagger, and so make open passage.” 

“ That were too rash,” said Douglas; “and besides, as I 
told you, the door of his apartment is shut and bolted. I 
will essay again to waken him.” 

Graeme instantly comprehended that the ladies, having 
been somehow made aware of his being in the garden, had 
secured the door of the outer room in which he usually 
slept, as a sort of sentinel upon that only access to the 
Queen’s apartments. But then, how came Catherine Sey- 
ton to be abroad, if the Queen and the other lady were 
still within their chambers, and the access to them locked 
and bolted ? — “ I will be instantly at the bottom of these 
mysteries,” he said, “and then thank Mistress Catherine, 
if this be really she, for the kind use which she exhorted 
Douglas to make of his dagger— they seek me, as I com- 
prehend, and they shall not seek me in vain.” 

Douglas had by this time re-entered the castle by the 
wicket, which was now open. The stranger stood alone 
in the garden walk, his arms folded on his breast, and his 
eyes cast impatiently up to the moon, as if accusing her of 
betraying him bv the magnificence of her lustre. In a 
moment Roland ^Graeme stood before him— “A goodly 
night,” he said, “ Mistress Catherine, for a young lady to 
stray forth in disguise, and to meet with men in an or- 
chard ! ” 


3^4 


THE ABBOT. 


“ Hush ! ” said the stranger page, “ hush, tliou foolish 
patch, and tell us in a word if thou art friend or foe.” 

“ How should I be friend to one who deceives me by 
fair words, and who would have Douglas deal with me 
with his poniard ?” replied Roland. 

“ The fiend receive George of Douglas, and thee too, 
thou born madcap, and sworn marplot ! ” said the other ; 
‘‘ we shall be discovered, and then death is the word.” 

“ Catherine,” said the page, “you have dealt falsely and 
cruelly with me, and the moment of explanation is now 
come — neither it nor you shall escape me.” 

“ Madman ! ” said the stranger, “1 am neither Kate nor 
Catherine— the moon shines bright enough surely to know 
the hart from the hind.” 

“ That shift shall not serv^e you, fair mistress,” said the 
page, laying hold on the lap of the stranger’s cloak ; “ this 
time, at least, I will know with whom I deal.” 

“Unhand me,” said she, endeavoring to extricate herself 
from his grasp ; and in a tone where anger seemed to con- 
tend with a desire to laugh, “ use you so little discretion 
toward a daughter of Seyton ? ” 

But as Roland, encouraged perhaps by her risibility to 
suppose his violence was not unpardonably offensive, kept 
hold on her mantle, she said, in a sterner tone of unmixed 
resentment, “ Madman, let me go ! — there is life and death 
in this moment — I would not willingly hurt thee, and yet 
beware ! ” 

As she spoke, she made a sudden effort to escape, and in 
doing so, a pistol, which she carried in her hand or about 
her person, went off. 

The warlike sound instantly awakened the well-warded 
castle. The warder blew his horn, and began to toll the 
castle bell, crying out at the same time, “ Fie, treason ! 
treason ! crv all ! cry all ! ” 

The apparition of Catherine Seyton, which the page had 
let loose in the first moment of astonishment, vanished in 
darkness, but the plash of oars was heard, and in a second 
or two five or six arquebuses and a falconet were fired 
from the battlements of the castle successively, as if levelled 
at some object on the water. Confounded 'with these in- 
cidents, no w’’ay for Catherine’s protection (supposing her 
to be in the boat which he had heard put from the shore) 
occurred to Roland, save to have recourse to George of 
Douglas. He hastened for this purpose toward the apart- 
ment of the Queen, whence he heard loud voices and much 


THE ABBOT. 


32s 

trampling of feet. When lie entered, he found himself 
added to a confused and astonished group, which, assem- 
bled in that apartment, stood gazing upon each other. At 
the upper end of the room stood the Queen, equipped as 
for a journey, and attended not only by the Lady Fleming, 
but by the omnipresent Catherine Seyton, dressed in the 
habit of her own sex, and bearing in her hand the casket in 
which Mary kept such jewels as she had been permitted to 
retain. At the other end of the hall was the Lady of Loch- 
leven, hastily dressed, as one startled from slumber by the 
sudden alarm, and surrounded by domestics, some bearing 
torches, others holding naked swords, partisans, pistols, or 
such other weapons as they had caught up in the hurr)” of 
a night alarm. Betwdxt these two parties stood George of 
Douglas, his arms folded on his breast, his eyes bent on 
the ground, like a criminal W’ho knows not how to deny, 
yet continues unwilling to avow, the guilt in which he has 
been detected. 

Speak, George of Douglas,” said the Lady of Loch- 
ieven ; “ speak, and clear the horrid suspicion which rests 
on thy name. Say ‘ A Douglas was never faithless to his 
trust, and I am a Douglas.’ Say this, my dearest son, and it 
is all I ask thee to say to clear thy name, even under such 
a foul charge. Say it was but the wile of these unhappy 
w'omen, and this false boy, which plotted an escape so fatal 
to Scotland — so destructive to thy father’s house.” 

“ Madam,” said old Dryfesdale, the steward, “ this much 
do I say for this silly page, that he could not be accessory 
to unlocking the doors, since I myself this night bolted 
him out of the castle. Whoever limned this night-piece, 
the lad’s share in it seems to Lave been small.” 

“Thou best, Dr}Tesdale,” said the Lady, “and wouldst 
throw the blame on thy master’s house, to save the worth- 
less life of a gypsy boy.” 

“ His death were more desirable to me than his life,” an- 
swered the steward, sullenly ; “but the truth is the truth.” 

At these words Douglas raised his head, drew up his 
figure to its full height, and spoke boldly and sedately, as 
one whose resolution was taken. “Let no life be endan- 
gered for me. I alone ” 

“ Douglas,” said the Queen, interrupting him, “art thou 
mad ? Speak not, I charge you.” 

“ Madam,” he replied, bowing with the deepest respect, 
“gladly would I obey your commands, but they must have 
a victim, and let it be the true one. Yes, madam,” he 


X2(> 


THE ABBOT. 


continued, addressing the Lady of Lochleven, “ I alone am 
guilty in this matter. If the word of a Douglas has yet 
any weight with you, believe me that this boy is innocent ; 
and on your conscience I charge you do him no wrong ; 
nor let the Queen suffer hardship for embracing the oppor- 
tunity of freedom which sincere loyalty — which a sentiment 
yet deeper — offered to her acceptance. Yes ! I had planned 
the escape of the most beautiful, the most persecuted of 
women ; and far from regretting that I, for a while, de- 
ceived the malice of her enemies, I glory in it, and am 
most willing to yield up life itself in her cause.” 

“Now may God have compassion on my age,” said the 
Lady of Lochleven, “and enable me to bear this load of 
affliction ! O Princess, 'born in a luckless hour, when will 
you cease to be the instrument of seduction and of ruin to 
all who approach you ? O ancient house of Lochleven, 
famed so long for birth and honor, evil was the hour which 
brought the deceiver under thy roof ! ” 

“ Say not so, madam,” replied her grandson ; “ the old 
honors of the Douglas line will be outshone, when one of 
its descendants dies for the most injured of Queens — for 
the most lovely of women.” 

“ Douglas,” said the Queen, “ must I at this moment — 
ay, even at this moment, when I may lose a faithful sub- 
ject forever, chide thee for forgetting what is due to me as 
thy Queen ? ” 

“ Wretched boy,” said the distracted Lady of Lochleven, 
“ hast thou fallen even thus far into the snare of this Mo- 
abitish woman ? — hast thou bartered thy name, thy alle- 
giance, thy knightly oath, thy duty to thy parents, thy coun- 
try, and thy God-, for a feigned tear, or a sickly smile, from 
lips which flattered the infirm Francis — lured to death the 
idiot Darnley — read luscious poetry with the minion Chas- 
telar — mingled in the lays of love which were sung by the 
beggar Rizzio — and which were joined in rapture to those 
of the foul and licentious Bothwell ! ” 

“ Blaspheme not, madam ! ” said Douglas ; “ nor you, 
fair Queen, and virtuous as fair, chide at this moment the 
presumption of thy vassal ! — Think not that the mere de- 
votion of a subject could have moved me to the part I 
have been performing. Well you deserve that each of 
your lieges should die for you ; but I have done more — 
have done that to which love alone could compel a Doug- 
las — I have dissembled — Farewell, then. Queen of all 
hearts, and Empress of that of Douglas 1 — When you are 


thk abbot. 

o-i 

freed from this vile bondage— as freed you shall be if 
justice remmns in Heaven— and when you load with hon- 
ors and titles the happy man who shall deliver you cast 
one thought on him whose heart would have despised 
every reward for a kiss of your hand — cast one thought 
on his fidelity, and drop one tear on his grave ” And 
throwing himself at her feet, he seized her hand and 
pressed it to his lips. 

“ This before my face ! ” exclaimed the Lady of Loch- 
leven “wilt thou court thy adulterous paramour before 
the eyes of a parent ? — Tear them asunder, and put him 
under strict ward ! Seize him, upon your lives ! ” she 
added, seeing that her attendants looked on each other 
with hesitation. 

“ They are doubtful,” said Mary. “ Save thyself, Doug- 
las, I command thee ! ” 

He started up from the floor, and only exclaiming, “ My 
life or death are yours, and at your disposal ! ” drew his 
sword, and broke through those who stood betwixt him 
and the door. The enthusiasm of his onset was too sudden 
and too lively to have been opposed by anything short of 
the most decided opposition ; and as he was both loved 
and feared by his father’s vassals, none of them would 
oifer him actual injury. 

The Lady of Lochleven stood astonished at his sudden 
escape — “ Am I surrounded,” she said, “ by traitors ? Upon 
him, villains ! — pursue, stab, cut him down ! ” 

“ He cannot leave the island, madam,” said Dryfesdale, 
interfering ; “ I have the key of the boat-chain.” 

But two or three voices of those who pursued from curi- 
osity, or command of their mistress, exclaimed from below 
that he had cast himself into the lake. 

“ Brave Douglas still ! ” exclaimed the Queen — “ Oh, 
true and noble heart, that prefers death to imprison- 
ment!” ' 

“ Fire upon him ! ” said the Lady of Lochleven ; “ if 
there be here a true servant of his father, let him shoot 
the runagate dead, and let the lake cover our shame ! ” 

Tlie report of a gun or two was heard, but they were 
probably shot rather to obey the Lady than with any pur- 
pose of hitting the mark ; and Randal immediately en- 
tering, said that Master George had been taken up by a 
boat from the castle, which lay at a little distance. 

“ Man a barge, and pursue them ! ” said the Lady. 

“It were quite vain,” said Randal; “ by this time they 


THE ABBOT. 


328 

are half-way to shore, and a cloud has come over the 
moon.” 

“ And has the traitor then escaped ? ” said the Lady, 
pressing her hands against her forehead with a gesture of 
despair ; “the honor of our house is forever gone, and all 
will be deemed accomplices in this base treachery.” 

“Lady of Lochleven,” said Mary, advancing toward 
her, “you have this niglit cut off my fairest hopes — You 
have turned my expected freedom into bondage, and 
dashed away the cup of joy in the very instant I was ad- 
vancing it to my lips — and yet I feel for your sorrow the 
pity that you deny to mine — Gladly would I comfort you 
if I might ; but as I may not, I would at least part from 
you in charity.” 

“Away, proud woman!” said the Lady; “who ever 
knew so well as thou to deal the deepest wounds under 
the pretence of kindness and courtesy ?— Who, since the 
great traitor, could ever so betray with a kiss ? ” 

“Lady Douglas of Lochleven,” said the Queen, “in 
this moment thou canst not offend me^ — no, not even by 
thy coarse and unwomanly language, held to me in the 
presence of menials and armed retainers. I have this 
night owed so much to one member of the house of Loch- 
leven, as to cancel whatever its mistress can do or say in 
the wildness of her passion.” 

“ We are bounden to you, Princess,” said Lady Loch- 
leven, putting a strong constraint on herself, and passing 
from her tone of violence to that of bitter irony; “our 
poor house hath been but seldom graced with royal smiles, 
and will hardly, with my choice, exchange their rough hon- 
esty for such court-honor as Mary of Scotland has now to 
bestow.” 

“ They,” replied Mary, “ who knew so well how to take., 
may think themselves excused from the obligation implied 
in receiving. And that I have now little to offer, is the 
fault of the Douglases and their allies.” 

“Fear nothing, madam,” replied the Lady of Lochleven, 
in the same bitter tone ; “you retain an exchequer which 
neither your own prodigality can drain, nor your offended 
country deprive you of. While you have fair words and 
delusive smiles at command you need no other bribes to 
lure youth to folly.” 

The Queen cast not an ungratified glance on a large 
mirror, which, hanging on one side of the apartment, and 
illuminated by the torchlight, rellected lier beautiful face 


THE ABBOT. 


329 


and person. “Our hostess grows complaisant,*’ she said, 

my Fleming ; we had not thought that grief and captivity 
had left us so well stored with that sort of wealth w6ich 
ladies prize most dearly.” 

“Your Grace will drive this severe woman frantic,” said 
Fleming, in a low tone. “On my knees I implore you to 
remember she is already dreadfully offended, and that we 
are in her power.” 

“I will not spare her, Fleming,” answered the Queen; 
“it is against my nature. She returned my honest sym- 
pathy with insult and abuse, and I will gall her in return 
— if her words are too blunt for answer, let her use her 
poniard if she dare ! ” 

“The Lady Lochleven,” said the Lady Fleming aloud, 
“would surely do well now to withdraw, and to leave her 
Grace to repose.” 

“Ay,” replied the Lady, “or to leave her Grace, and 
her Grace’s minions, to think what silly fly they may 
next wrap their meshes about. My eldest son is a wid- 
ower — were he not more worthy the flattering hopes 
with which you have seduced his brother ? — True, the 
yoke of marriage has been already thrice fitted on — 
but the church of Rome calls it a sacrament, and its vo- 
taries may deem it one in which they cannot too often 
participate.” 

“And the votaries of the church of Geneva,” replied 
Mary, coloring with indignation, “as they deem marriage 
no sacrament, are said at times to dispense with the holy 
ceremony.” Then, as if afraid of the consequences of 
this home allusion to the errors of Lady Lochleven’s 
early life, the Queen added, “ Come, my Fleming, we 
grace her too much by this altercation ; we will to our 
sleeping apartment. If she would disturb us again to- 
night, she must cause the door to be forced.” So saying, 
she retired to her bedroom, followed by her two women. 

Lady Lochleven, stunned as it were by this last sarcasm, 
and not the less deeply incensed that she had drawn it 
upon herself, remained like a statue on the spot which she 
had occupied when she received an affront so flagrant. 
Dryfesdale and Randal endeavored to rouse her to recol- 
lection by questions. 

“ What is your honorable Ladyship’s pleasure in the 
premises ? ” 

“Shall we not double the sentinels, and place one upon 
the boats and another in the garden ?” said Randal. 


330 


THE ABBOT. 


“ Would you that despatches were sent to Sir William 
at Edin*i’i3urgh, to acquaint him with what has happened ?” 
denxanded Dryfesdale ; “ and ought not the place of Kin- 
ross to be alarmed, lest there be force upon the shores of 
the lake?” 

/‘Do all as thou wilt,” said the Lady, collecting herself, 
and about to depart. “Thou hast the name of a good 
soldier, Dryfesdale, take all precautions — Sacred Heaven ! 
that I should be thus openly inshlted ! ” 

“ Would it be your pleasure,” said Dryfesdale, hesi- 
tating, “that this person — this Lady — be more severely 
restrained ? ” 

“ No, vassal ! ” answered the Lady, indignantly, “ my re- 
venge stoops not to so low a gratification. But 1 will have 
more worthy vengeance, or the tomb of my ancestors shall 
cover my shame !” 

“And you shall have it, madam,” replied Dryfesdale. “ Ere 
two suns go down you shall term yourself amply revenged.” 

The Lady made no answer — perhaps did not hear his 
words, as she presently left the apartment. By the com- 
mand of Dryfesdale, the rest of the attendants were dis- 
missed, some to do the duty of guard, others to their re- 
pose. The steward himself remained after they had all 
departed ; and Roland Graeme, who was alone in the 
apartment, was surprised to see the old soldier advance 
toward him with an air of greater cordiality than he had 
ever before assumed to him, but which sat ill on his scowl- 
ing features. 

“Youth,” he said, “ I have done thee some wrong — it is 
thine own fault, for thy behavior hath seemed as light to 
me as the feather thou wearest in thy hat ; and surely thy 
fantastic apparel, and idle humor of mirth and folly, have 
made me construe thee something harshly. But I saw 
this night from my casement (as I looked out to see how 
thou hadst disposed of thyself in the garden,) I saw, I say, 
the true efforts which thou didst make to detain the com- 
panion of the perfidy of him who is no longer worthy to 
be called by his father’s name, but must be cut off from 
his house like a rotten branch. I was just about to come 
to thy assistance when the pistol went off, and the warden 
(a false knave, whom I suspect to be bribed for the nonce) 
saw himself forced to give the alarm, which, perchance, 
till then he had wilfully withheld. To atone, therefore, for 
my injustice toward you, I would ^^illingly render you a 
courtesy, if you would accept of it from my hands.” 


'I'Hh ABBOT. 


331 


‘•May I first crave to know what it is?” replied the 
page. 

“ Simply to carry the news of this discover^' to Holy- 
rood, wliere thou mayest do thyself much grace, as well 
with the Earl of Morton and the Regent himself, as with 
Sir William Douglas, seeing thou hast seen the matter 
from end to end, and borne faithful part therein. The 
making thine own fortune will be thus lodged in thine 
own hand, when I trust thou wilt estrange thvself from 
foolish vanities, and learn to walk in this world as one 
who thinks upon the next.” 

“Sir Steward,” said Roland Graeme, “I thank you for 
your courtesy, but I may not do your errand. I pass that 
I am the Queen’s sworn servant, and may not be of counsel 
against her. But, setting this apart, methinks it were a 
bad road to Sir William of Lochleven’s favor to be the first 
to tell him of his son’s defection — neither would the Re- 
gent be over Avell pleased to hear the infidelity of his vas- 
sal, nor Morton to learn the falsehood of Ids kinsman.” 

“ Urn ! ” said the steward, making that inai'ticulate sound 
which expresses surprise mingled with displeasure. “ Nay, 
then, even fly where ye list ; for, giddy-pated as ye may be, 
you know how to bear you in the world.” 

“ I will show you my esteem is less selfish than ye think 
for,” said the page; “for I hold truth and mirth to be 
better than gravity and cunning — ay, and in the end to be 
a match for them. You never loved me less Sir Steward, 
than you do at this moment. I know you will give me no 
real confidence, and I am resolved to accept no false prot- 
estations as current coin. Resume your old course — sus- 
pect me as much and watch me as closely as you wall, I 
bid you defiance — you have met with your match.” 

“ By Heaven, young man,” said the stew^ard, with a look 
of bitter malignity, “ if thou darest to attempt any treach- 
ery toward the House of Lochleven, thy head shall blacken 
in the sun from the warder’s turret!” 

“He cannot commit treachery who refuses trust,” said 
the page ; “and for my head, it stands as securely on my 
shoulders, as on any turret that ever mason built.” 

“Farewell, thou prating and speckled pie,” said Dryfes- 
dale, “ that art so vain of thine idle tongue and variegated 
coat ! Beware trap and lime-twig.” 

“ And fare thee well, thou hoarse old raven,” answered 
the page ; “ thy solemn flight, sable hue, and deep croak, 
are no charms against bird-bolt or hail-shot, and that thou 


332 


THE ABBOT. 


mayest find — it is open war betwixt us, each for the cause 
of our mistress, and God show the riglit!” 

“ Amen, and defend his own people ! ” said the steward. 
“ I will let my mistress know what addition thou hast 
made to this mess of traitors. Good-night, Monsieur 
Featherpate.” ^ 

“ Good-night, Seignior Sowersby,” replied the page ; 
and, when the old man departed, he betook himself to rest. 


CHAPTER THIRTY-FIRST. 

Poison’d — ill fare ! dead, forsook, cast off ! 

King John. 

However weary Roland Graeme might be of the Castle 
of Lochleven — however much he might wish that the plan 
for Mary’s escape had been perfected, I question if he ever 
awoke with more pleasing feelings than on the morning 
after George Douglas’s plan for accomplishing her deliver- 
ance had been frustrated. In the first place, he had the 
clearest conviction that he had misunderstood the innuendo 
of the Abbot, and that the affections of Douglas were fixed, 
not on Catherine Seyton, but on the Queen ; and in the 
second place, from the sort of explanation which had taken 
place betwixt the steward and him, he felt himself at lib- 
erty, without any breach of honor toward the family of 
Lochleven, to contribute his best aid to any scheme which 
should in future be formed for the Queen’s escape ; and, 
independently of the good-will which he himself had to 
the enterprise, he knew he could find no surer road to the 
favor of Catherine Seyton. He now sought but an oppor- 
tunity to inform her that he had dedicated himself to this 
task, and fortune was propitious in affording him one 
which was unusually favorable. 

At the ordinary hour of breakfast, it was introduced by 
the steward with his usual forms, who, as soon as it was 
placed on the board in the inner apartment, said to Roland 
Graeme, with a glance of sarcastic import, “ I leave you, 
my young sir, to do the office of sewer — it has been too 
long rendered to the Lady Mary by one belonging to the 
house of Douglas.” 

“ Were it the prime and principal who ever bore the 
name,” said Roland, “the office were an honor to him.” 


THE ABBOT, 


333 

The steward departed without replying to this bravado, 
otherwise than by a dajrk look of scorn. Graeme, thus left 
alone, busied himself as one engaged in a labor of love, to 
imitate, as well as he could, the grace and courtesy with 
which George of Douglas was wont to render his ceremo- 
nial service at meals to the Queen of Scotland. There was 
more than youthful vanity — there was a generous devotion 
in the feeling with which he took up the task, as a brave 
soldier assumes the place of a comrade who has fallen in 
the front of battle. “ I am now,” he said, “ their only 
champion : and, come weal, come woe, I will be, to the 
best of my skill and power, as faithful, as trustworthy, as 
brave, as any Douglas of them all could have been.” 

At this moment Catherine Seyton entered alone, contrary 
to her custom ; and, not less contrary to her custom, she 
entered with her kerchief at her eyes. Roland Graeme 
approached her with beating heart and with downcast eyes, 
and asked her, in a low and hesitating voice, whether the 
Queen were well ? 

“Can you suppose it?” said Catherine. “Think you 
her heart and body are framed of steel and iron, to endure 
the cruel disappointment of yester even, and the infamous 
taunts of yonder puritanic hag ? — Would to God that I 
were a man to aid her more effectually ! ” 

“ If those who carry pistols, and batons, and poniards,” 
said the page, “ are not men, they are at least Amazons ; 
and that is as formidable.” 

“ You are welcome to the flash of your wit, sir,” replied 
the damsel ; “lam neither in spirits to enjoy nor to reply 
to it.” 

“Well, then,” said the page, “list to me in all serious 
truth. And, first, let me say, that the gear last night had 
been smoother, had you taken me into your counsels.” 

“And so we meant ; but who could have guessed that 
Master Page should choose to pass all night in the gar- 
den, like some moon-stricken knight in a Spanish romance 
— instead of being in his bedroom, when Douglas came 
to hold communication with him on our project ?” 

“ And why,” said the page, “ defer to so late a moment 
so important a confidence ? ” 

“ Because your communications with Henderson, and — 
with pardon — the natural impetuosity and fickleness of 
your disposition, made us dread to entrust you with a se- 
cret of such consequence till the last moment.” 

“ And why at the last moment ?” said the page, offended 


334 


THE ABBOT. 


at this frank avowal ; “why at that, or any other moment, 
since I had the misfortune to incur so much suspicion?” 

“ Nay— now you. are angry again,” said Catherine ; “ and 
to serve you aright I should break off this talk ; but I will 
be magnanimous, and answer your question. Know, then, 
our reason for trusting you was twofold. In the first place, 
we could scarce avoid it, since you slept in the room 
through which we had to pass. In the second place 

“ Nay,” said the page, “you may dispense with a second 
reason, when the first makes your confidence in me a case 
of necessity.” 

“ Good now, hold thy peace,” said Catherine. “ In tlie 
second place, as I said before, there is one foolish person 
among us, who believes that Roland Graeme’s heart is 
warm, though his head is giddy — that his blood is pure, 
though it boils too hastily— and that his faith and honor 
are true as the load-star, though his tongue sometimes is 
far less than discreet.” 

This avowal Catherine repeated in a low tone, with her 
eye fixed on the floor, as if she shunned the glance of 
Roland while she suffered it to escape her lips — “And 
this single friend,” exclaimed the youth in rapture ; “ this- 
only one who would do justice to the poor Roland Gr^me, 
and whose own generous heart taught her to distinguish 
between follies of the brain and faults of the heart — Will 
you not tell me, dearest Catherine, to whom I owe my 
most grateful, my most heartfelt thanks ? ” 

“Nay,” said Catherine, with her eyes still fixed on the 
ground, “ if your own heart tell you not” 

“ Dearest "Catherine ! ” said the page, seizing upon her 
hand, and kneeling on one knee. 

“ If your own heart, I say, tell you not,” said Catherine, 
gently disengaging her hand, “ it is very ungrateful ; for 
since the maternal kindness of the Lady Fleming ” 

The page started on his feet. “By Heaven, Catherine, 
your tongue wears as many disguises as your person ! But 
you only mock me, cruel girl. You know the Lady Flem- 
ing has no more regard for any one than hath the forlorn 
princess who is wrought into yonder piece of old figured 
court tapestry.” 

“ It may be so,” said Catherine Seyton, “ but you should 
not speak so loud.” 

“Pshaw!” answered the page, but at the same time 
lowering his voice, “ she cares for no one but herself and 
the Queen. And you know, besides, there is no one of 


THE ABBOT. 


335 


you whose opinion I value, if I have not your own. No — 
not that of Queen Mary herself.” 

“ The more shame for you, if it be so,” said Catherine, 
with great composure. 

“ Nay, but, fair Catherine,” said the page, “ why will you 
thus damp my ardor, when I am devoting myself, body and 
soul, to the cause of your mistress ?” 

“ It is because in doing so,” said Catherine, “you debase 
a cause so noble by naming along with it any lower or 
more selfish motive. Believe me,” she said, with kindling 
eyes, and while the blood mantled on her cheek, “ they 
think vilely and falsely of women — I mean of those wdio 
deserve the name — who deem that they love the gratifica- 
tion of their vanity, or the mean purpose of engrossing a 
lover’s admiration and affection, better than they love the 
virtue and honor of the man they may be brought to pre- 
fer. He that serves his religion, his prince, and his coun- 
try, with ardor and devotion, need not plead his cause with 
the commonplace rant of romantic passion — the woman 
whom he honors with his love becomes his debtor, and her 
corresponding affection is engaged to repay his glorious 
toil.” 

“ You hold a glorious prize for such toil,” said the youth, 
bending his eyes on her with enthusiasm. 

“Only a heart which knows how to value it,” said Cath- 
erine. “ He that should free this injured Princess from 
these dungeons, and set her at liberty among her loyal and 
warlike nobles. Whose hearts are burning to welcome her 
— where is the maiden in Scotland w^hom the love of such 
a hero would not honor, were she sprung from the blaod 
royal of the land, and he the offspring of the poorest cot- 
tager that ever held a plough ? ” 

“ I am determined,” said Roland, “to take the adventure. 
Tell me first, however, fair Catherine, and speak it as if 
you were confessing to the priest— this poor Queen, I know 
she is unhappy — but, Catherine, do you hold her innocent ? 
She is accused of murder.” 

“ Do I hold the lamb guilty, because it is assailed by the 
wolf?” answered Catherine ; “do I hold yonder sun pol- 
luted, because an earth-damp sullies his beams ?’ 

The page sighed and looked down. “ Would my con- 
viction were as deep as thine ! But one thing is clear, that 
in this captivity she hath wrong — She rendered herself up, 
on a capitulation, and the terms have been refused her I 
will embrace her quarrel to the death ! 


336 


THE ABBOT. 


“ Will you— will you, indeed ? ” said Catherine, taking 
his hand in her turn. “ Oh, be but firm in mind, as thou 
art bold in deed and quick in resolution ; keep but thy 
plighted faith, and after ages shall honor thee as the saviour 
of Scotland ! ” 

“ But when I have toiled successfully to win that Leah, 
Honor, thou wilt not, my Catherine,” said the page, “con- 
demn me to a new term of service for that Rachel, Love ? ” 

“ Of that,” said Catherine, again extricating her hand 
from his grasp, “ we shall have full time to speak ; but 
Honor is the elder sister, and must be won the first.” 

“ I may not win her,” answered the page ; “ but I will 
venture fairly for her, and man can do no more. And 
know, fair Catherine — for you shall see the very secret 
thought of my heart— that not Honor only— not only that 
other and fairer sister, whom you frown on me for so much 
as mentioning — but the stern commands of duty also, com- 
pel me to aid the Queen’s deliverance.” 

“ Indeed ! ” said Catherine ; “ you were wont to have 
doubts on that matter.” 

“Ay, but her life was not then threatened,” replied Ro- 
land. 

“ And is it now more endangered than heretofore t ” 
asked Catherine Seyton, in anxious terror. 

“Be not alarmed,” said the page ; “but you heard the 
terms on which your royal mistress parted with the Lady 
of Lochleven ? ” 

“ Too well— but too well,” said Catherine ; “ alas ! that 
she cannot rule her princely resentment, and refrain from 
encounters like these ! ” 

“That hath passed betwixt them,” said Roland, “for 
which woman never forgives woman. I saw the Lady’s 
brow turn pale, and then black, when, before all the 
menzie, and in her moment of power, the queen humbled 
her to the dust by taxing her with her shame. And I 
heard the oath of deadly resentment and revenge which 
she muttered in the ear of one, who by his answer will, I 
judge, be but too ready an executioner of her will.” 

“ You terrify me,” said Catherine. 

“Do not so take it — call up the masculine part of youi- 
spirit— we will counteract and defeat her plans, be they 
dangerous as they may. Why do you look upon me thus, 
and weep ? ” 

“Alas!” said Catherine, “because you stand there be- 
fore me a living and breathing man, in all the adventurous 


THE ABBOT. 


337 


glow and enterprise of youth, yet still possessing the frolic 
spirits of childiiood — there you stand, full alike of generous 
enterprise and childish recklessness ; and if to-day, or to- 
morrow, or some such brief space, you lie a mangled and 
lifeless corpse upon the floor of these hateful dungeons, 
who but Catherine Seyton will be the cause of your brave 
and gay career being broken short as you start from tlie 
goal ? Alas ! she whom you have chosen to twine your 
wreath may too probably have to work your shroud ! ” 

“And be it so, Catherine,” said the page, in the full glow 
of youthful enthusiasm; “and thou work my shroud! 
and if thou grace it with such tears as fall now at the 
thought, it will honor my remains more than an earl’s 
mantle would my living body. But shame on this faintness 
of heart! the time craves a firmer mood — Be a woman, 
Catherine, or rather be a man — thou canst be a man if 
thou wilt,” 

Catherine dried her tears, and endeavored to smile. 

“You must not ask me,'” she said, “about that which so 
much disturbs your mind ; you shall know all in time — nay, 
you should know all now, but that — Hush ! here comes 
the Queen.” 

Mary entered from her apartment, paler than usual, and 
apparently exhausted by a sleepless night, and by the 
painful thoughts which had ill supplied the place of re- 
pose ; yet the languor of her looks was so far from impair- 
ing her beauty, that it only substituted tlie frail delicacy 
of the lovely woman for the majestic grace of the Queen. 
Contrary to her wont, her toilet had been very hastily 
despatched, and her hair, which was usually dressed* by 
Lady Fleming with great care, escaping from beneath the 
head-tire, which had been hastily adjusted, fell in long and 
luxuriant tresses of Nature’s own curling over a neck and 
bosom which were somewhat less carefully veiled than 
usual. 

As she stepped over the threshold of her apartment, 
Catherine, hastily drying her tears, ran to meet her royal 
mistress, and having first kneeled at her feet, and kissed 
her hand, instantly rose, and placing herself on the other 
side of the Queen, seemed anxious to divide vyith the Lady 
Fleming the honor of supporting and assisting her. The 
page, on his part, advanced and put in order the chair of 
state, which she usually occupied, and having placed the 
cushion and footstool for her accommodation, stepped 
back, and stood ready for service in the place usually oc- 


22 


33 ^ 


Tin-: ABBOT. 


cupied by his predecessor, the young Seneschal. Mary’s 
eye rested an instant on him, and could not but remark 
the change of persons. Hers was not the female heart 
which could refuse compassion, at least, to a gallant youth 
who had suffered in her cause, altliough he had been 
guided in his enterprise by a too presumptuous passion; 
and the words “Poor Douglas!” escaped from her lips, 
perhaps unconsciously, as she leaned herself back in her 
chair, and put the kerchief to her eyes. 

“Yes, gracious madam,” said Catherine, assuming a 
cheerful manner, in order to cheer her sovereign, “"our 
gallant Knight is indeed banished — the adventure was not 
reserved for him ; but he has left behind him a youthful 
Esquire as much devoted to your Grace’s service, and 
who, by me, makes you tender of his hand and sword.” 

“ If they may in aught avail your Grace,” said Roland 
Graeme, bowing profoundly. 

“Alas!” said the Queen, “what needs this, Catherine? 
— why prepare new victims to be involved in, and over- 
whelmed by, my cruel fortune ? — were we not better cease 
to struggle, and ourselves sink in the tide without farther 
resistance, than thus drag into destruction with us every 
generous heart which makes an effort in our favor? — 
have had but too much of plot and intrigue around me, 
since I was stretched an orphan child in my very cradle, 
while contending nobles strove which should rule in the 
name of the unconscious innocent. Surely time it were 
that all this busy and most dangerous coil should end. 
Let me call my prison a convent, and my seclusion a vol- 
untary sequestration of myself from the world and its 
ways.” 

“Speak not thus, madam, before your faithful servants,” 
said Catherine, “ to discourage their zeal at once and to 
break their hearts. Daughter of Kings, be not in this hour 
so unkingly— Come, Roland, and let us, the youngest of 
her followers, show ourselves worthy of her cause — let us 
kneel before her footstool, and implore her to be her own 
magnanimous self.” And leading Roland Graeme to the 
Queen’s seat, they both kneeled down before her. Mary 
raised herself in her chair, and sat erect, while extending 
one hand to be kissed by the page, she arranged with the 
other the clustering locks which shaded the bold yet lovely 
brow of the high-spirited Catherine. 

“Alas! ma mignonne" she said, for so in fondness she 
often called her young attendant, “ that you should thus 


////: AI^ISUJ . 


339 


desperately mix with my unhappy fate the fortune of your 
young lives ! — Are they not a lovely couple, my Fleming ? 
and is it not heart-rending to think that I must be their 
ruin ? ” 

“ Not so,” said Roland Graeme, “ it is we, gracious Sov- 
ereign, who will be your deliverers.” 

'"'‘Ex oribus parvidorum!" said the Queen, looking up- 
ward ; “ if it is by the mouth of these children that Heaven 
calls me to resume the stately thoughts which become my 
birth and my rights, Thou wilt grant them thy protection, 
and to me the power of rewarding their zeal ! ” — Then 
turning to Fleming, she instantly added — “Thou knowest, 
my friend, whether to make those who have served me 
happy, was not ever Mary’s favorite pastime. When I have 
been rebuked by the stern preachers of the Calvinistic 
heresy — when I have seen the fierce countenances of my 
nobles averted from me, has it not been because I mixed 
in the harmless pleasures of the young and gay, and rather 
for the sake of their happiness than my own, have mingled ' 
in the mask, the song, or the dance, with the youth of 
my household ? Well, I repent not of it — though Knox 
termed it sin, and Morton degradation — I was happy, 
because I saw happiness around me; and woe betide the 
wretched jealousy that can extract guilt out of the over- 
flowings of an unguarded gayety ! — Fleming, if we are 
restored to our throne, shall we not have one blithesome 
day at a blithesome bridal, of which we must now name 
neither the bride nor the bridegroom? but that bridegroom 
shall have the barony of Blairgowrie, a fair gift even for a 
Queen to give, and that bride’s chaplet shall be twined 
with the fairest pearls that ever were found in the depths 
of Lochlomond ; and thou thyself, Mary Fleming, the best 
dresser of tires that ever busked the tresses of a Queen, and 
who would scorn to touch those of any woman of lower 
rank — thou thyself shalt, for my love, twine them into the 
bride’s tresses. Look, my Fleming, suppose them such 
clustered locks as those of our Catherine, they would not 
put shame upon thy skill.” 

So saying, she passed her hand fondly over the head of 
her youthful favorite, while her more aged attendant re- 
plied despondently, “ Alas ! madam, your thoughts stray 

far from home.” . . 

“ They do, my Fleming,” said the Queen ; “but is it well 
or kind in you to call them back ? God knows they have 
kept 'the perch this night but too closely Come, I will 


340 


THE ABB 07. 


recall the gay vision were it but to punish them. Yes, at 
that blithesome bridal Mary herself shall forget the weight 
of sorrows, and the toil of state, and herself once more lead 
a measure. At whose wedding was it that we last danced, 
my Fleming ? I think care has troubled my memory — yet 
something of it I should remember — canst thou not aid 
me ? I know thou canst.” 

“Alas! madam,” replied the lady 

“ What ! ” said Mary, “ wilt thou not help us so far ? this 
is a peevish adherence to thine own graver opinion vvhich 
holds our talk as folly. But thou art court-bred, and wilt 
well understand me when I say, the Queen coinmands Lady 
Flenaing to tell her where she led the last branle." ■ 

With a face deadly pale, and a mien as if slie were about 
to sink into the earth, the court-bred dame, no longer 
daring to refuse obedience, faltered out— “ Gracious Lady 
—if my memory err not— it was at a mask in Holyrood— 
at the marriage of Sebastian.” 

The unhappy Queen, who had hitherto listened with a 
melancholy smile, provoked by the reluctance with which 
the Lady Fleming brought out her story, at this ill-fated 
word interrupted her with a shriek so wild and loud that 
the vaulted apartment rang, and both Roland and Cathe- 
rine sprung to their feet in the utmost terror and alarm. 
Meantime, Mary seemed, by the train of horrible ideas 
thus suddenly excited, surprised not only beyond self-com- 
mand, but for the moment beyond the verge of reason. 

“Traitress!” she said to the Lady Fleming, “tliou 
wouldst slay thy sovereign. Call my French guards— 
mot ! a moi I mes Frangais /—I am beset with traitors in mine 
own palace— they have murdered my husband. Rescue ! 
rescue for the Queen of Scotland ! ” She started up from 
her chair— her features, late so exquisitely lovely in their 
paleness, now inflamed with the fury of frenzv, and resem- 
bling those of a Bellona. “ We will take the field ourself,” 
she said ; “ warn the city— warn Lothian and Fife— saddle 
o.ur Spanish barb, and bid French Paris see our petronel 
charged ! Better to die at the head of our brave Scotsmen, 
like our grandfather at Flodden, than of a broken heart 
like our ill-starred father !” ’ 

“Be patient— be composed, dearest sovereign,” said 
Catherine ; and then, addressing Lady Fleming angrily 
she added, “How could you say aught that reminded her 
of her husband ?” 

word i cached the car of the unhappy princess, who 


THE ABBOT. 


341 


caught it up, speaking with great rapidity. “ Husband !-- 
what husband ? Not his most Christian Majesty — he is ill 
at ease he cannot mount on horseback. Not liim of the 
Lennox— but it was the Duke of Orkney thou wouldst 
say.” 

“ For God’s love, madam, be patient ! ” said the Lady 
Fleming. 

But the Queen’s excited imagination could by no en- 
treaty be diverted from its course. “ Bid him come hither 
to our aid,” she said, “and bring with him his lambs, as he 
calls them— Bowton, Hay of Talla, Black Ormiston, amd 
his kinsman Hob. Fie ! how swart they are, and how they 
smell of sulphur ! What ! closeted with Morton ? Nay, 
if the Douglas and the Hepburn hatch the complot to- 
gether, 'the bird, when it breaks the shell, will scare Scot- 
land. Will it not, my Fleming ? ” 

“ She grows wilder and wilder,” said Fleming ; “we have 
too many hearers for these strange words.” 

“Roland,” said Catherine, “in the name of God be- 
gone ! You cannot aid us here. Leave us to deal with 
her alone. Away — away ! ” 

She thrust him to the door of the ante-room ; yet even 
when he had entered that apartment^ and shut the door, 
he could still hear the Queen talk in a loud and deter- 
mined tone, as if giving forth orders, until at length the 
voice died aw’ay in a feeble and continued lamentation. 

At this crisis Catherine entered the ante-room. “ Be 
not too anxious,” she said, “ the crisis is now over ; but 
keep the door fast — let no one enter until she is more com- 
posed.” 

“ In the name of God, what does this mean ?” said the 
page ; “ or what was there in the Lady Fleming’s words to 
excite so wild a transport ? ” 

“ Oh, the Lady Fleming, the Lady Fleming,” said Cath- 
erine, repeating the words impatiently ; “ the Lady Flem- 
ing is a fool — she loves her mistress, yet knows so little how 
to express her love, that were the Queen to ask her for 
very poison, she fvould deem it a point of duty not to resist 
her commands. I could have torn her starched head-tire 
from her formal head. The Queen should have as soon 
had the heart out of my body as the word Sebastian out 
of my lips. That that piece of weaved tapestry should be 
a woman, and yet. not have wit enough to tell a lie ! ” 

“And what was this story of Sebastian ?” said the page, 

“ By Heaven, Catherine, you are all riddles alike ! ” 


342 


THE ABB 07. 


“ You are as great a fool as Fleming,” returned the im- 
patient maiden ; “ know ye not, that on the night of Henry 
Darnley’s murder, and at the blowing up of the Kirk of 
Field, the Queen’s absence was owing to her attending on 
a mask at Holyrood, given by her to grace the marriage 
of this same Sebastian, who, himself a favored servant, 
married one of her female attendants, who was near to her 
person ? ” 

“ By Saint Giles !” said the page, “ I wonder not at her 
passion, but only marvel by what forgetfulness it was that 
she could urge the Lady Fleming with such a question.” 

“ I cannot account for it,” said Catherine ; “ but it seems 
as if great and violent grief and horror sometimes obscure 
the memory, and spread a cloud like that of an exploding 
cannon over the circumstances with which they are’accom- 
panied. But I may not stay here, where I came not to 
moralize with your wisdom, but simply to cool my resent- 
ment against that unwise Lady Fleming, which I think hath 
now somewhat abated, so that I shall endure her presence 
without any desire to damage either hercurch or vasquine. 
Meanwhile, keep fast that door — I would not for my life 
that any of these heretics saw her in the unhappy state, 
which, brought on her as it has been by the success of 
their own diabolical plottings, they would not stick to call, 
in their snuffling cant, the judgment of Providence.” 

She left the apartment just as the latch of the outward 
door was raised from without. But the bolt which Ro- 
land had drawn on the inside, resisted the efforts of the 
person desirous to enter. “Who is there?” said Graeme 
aloud. 

“It is I,” replied the harsh and yet slow voice of the 
steward Dryfesdale. 

“You cannot enter now,” returned the youth. 

“And wherefore?” demanded Dryfesdale, “seeing I 
come but to do my duty, and inquire what mean the 
shrieks from the apartment of the Moabitish woman. 
Wherefore, I say, since such is mine errand, can I not 
enter ? ” 

“ Simply,” replied the youth, “because the bolt is drawn, 
and I have no fancy to undo it. I have the right side of 
the door to-day, as you had last night.” 

“ Thou art ill-advised, thou malapert boy,” replied the 
steward, “ to speak to me in such fashion ; but I shall in- 
form my Lady of thine insolence.” 

“The insolence,” said the page, “is meant for thee only. 


THE ABBOT. 


343 

in fair guerdon of thy discourtesy to me. For thy Lady’s 
information, I have answer more courteous — you mav say 
that the Queen is ill at ease, and desires to be disturbed 
neither by visits nor messages.” 

“ I conjure you, in the name of God,” said- the old man, 
with more solemnity in his tone than he had hitherto used' 
“ to let me know if her malady really gains power on her ! ’’ 
“She will have no aid at your hand, or at your Lady’s 
‘—wherefore, begone and trouble us no more — we neither 
want, nor will accept of, aid at your hands.” 

With this positive reply, the steward, grumbling and 
dissatisfied, returned down stairs. 


s 

CHAPTER THIRTY-SECOND. 

It is the curse of kings to be attended 
By slaves, who take their humors for a warrant 
To break into the bloody house of life, 

And on the winking of authority 
To understand a law. 

King John. 

The Lady of Lochleven sat alone in her chamber, en- 
deavoring, with sincere but imperfect zeal, to fix her eyes 
and her attention on the black-lettered Bible which lay be- 
fore her, bound in velvet and embroidery, and adorned 
with massive clasps and knosps. But she found her ut- 
most efforts unable to withdraw her mind from the resent- 
ful recollection of what had last night passed betwixt her 
and the Queen, in which the latter had with such bitter 
taunt reminded her of her early and long-repented trans- 
gression. 

“Why,” she said, “should I resent so deeply that an- 
other reproaches me with that which I have never ceased 
to make matter of blushing to myself? and yet, why should 
this woman, who reaps — at least, has reaped — the fruits 
of my folly, and has jostled my son aside from the throne, 
why should she, in the face of all my domestics, and of 
her own, dare to upbraid me with my shame ? Is she not 
in my power ? Does she not fear me ? Ha ! wily tempter, 
I will wrestle with thee strongly, and with better sugges- 
tions than my own evil heart can supply !” 

She again took up the sacred volume, and was endeav- 
oring to fix her attention on its contents, when she was 


344 


THE ABBOT. 


disturbed by a tap at the door of the room. It opened at 
her command, and the steward Dryfesdale entered, and 
stood before her with a gloomy and perturbed expression 
on his brow. 

“ What has chanced, Dryfesdale, tliat thou lookest thus ?” 
said his mistress — “ Have there been evil tidings of my 
son, or of my grandchildren ? ” 

“No, Lady,” replied Dryfesdale, “but you were deeply 
insulted last night, and I fear me thou art as deeply avenged 
this morning — Where is the chaplain?” 

“What mean you by hints so dark, and a question so 
sudden ? The chaplain, as you well know, is absent at 
Perth upon an assembly of the brethren.” 

“ I care not,” answered the steward ; “he is but a priest 
of Baal.” 

“Dryfesdale,” said the Lady, sternly, “what meanest 
thou ? I have ever heard, that in the Low Countries thou 
didst herd with the Anabaptist preachers, those boars 
which tear up the vintage — But the ministry which suits 
me and my house must content my retainers.” 

“ I would I had good ghostly counsel, though,” replied 
the stew'ard, not attending to his mistress’s rebuke, and 
seeming to speak to himself. “This woman of Moab ” 

“ Speak of her with reverence,” said the Lady ; “ she is 
a king’s daughter.” 

“Be it so,” replied Dryfesdale ; “she goes where there 
is little difference betwixt her and a beggar’s child — Mary 
of Scotland is dying.” 

“ Dying, and in my castle ! ” said the Lady, starting up 
in alarm ; “ of what disease, or by what accident ?” 

“ Bear patience, Lady. The ministry was mine.” 

“Thine, villain and traitor ! — how didst thou dare” — — 

“I heard you insulted. Lady — I heard you demand ven- 
geance — I promised you should have it, and I now bring 
tidings of it.” 

“ Dryfesdale, I trust thou ravest ?” said the Lady. 

“I rave not,” replied the steward. “That which was 
written of me a million of years ere I saw the light, must be 
executed by me. She hath that in her veins that, I fear 
me, will soon stop the springs of life.” 

“ Cruel villain ! ” exclaimed the Lady, “ thou hast not 
poisoned her ! ” 

“ And if I had,” said Dryfesdale, “ what does it so greatly 
merit ? Men bane vermin — why not rid them of their 
enemies so ? in Italy they will do it for a cruizuedor.” 


THE ABBOT. 


34 S 


“ Cowardly ruffian, begone from my sight I ” 

Think better of my zeal, Lady,” said the steward, “and 
judge nut without looking around you. Lindesav, Ruth- 
ven, and your kinsman Morton, poniarded Rizzio,^ and vet 
you now see no blood on tlieir embroidery — the Lord 
Sempill stabbed the Lord of Sanquhar — does his bonnet 
sit a jot more awry on his brow ? Vv'hat noble lives in 
Scotland who has not had a share, for policy or rev’enge, 
in some such dealing ? — and who imputes -it to them ? Be 
not cheated with names — a dagger or a draught work to 
the same end, and are little unlike — a glass phial imprisons 
the one, and a leathern sheath the other — one deals with 
the brain, the other sluices the blood— Vet, I say not I gave 
aught to this lady.” 

“ Wliat dost thou mean by thus dallying with me ? ” said 
the Lady ; “ as thou wouldst save thy neck from the rope 
it merits, tell me the whole truth of this story — thou hast 
long been known a dangerous man.” 

“ Ay, in my master’s service I can be cold and sharp as 
ray sword. Be it known to you, that when last on shore, 
I consulted with a woman of skill and power, called Nic- 
neven, of whom the country has rung for some brief 
time past. Fools asked her for charms to make them 
beloved, misers for means to increase their store ; some 
demanded to know the future — an idle wish, since it can- 
not be altered ; others would have an explanation of the 
past — idler still, since it cannot be recalled. I heard their 
queries with scorn, and demanded the means of aveng- 
ing myself of a deadly enemy, for I grow old, and may 
trust no longer to Bilboa blade. She gave me a packet — 
‘Mix that,’ said she, ‘with any liquid, and thy vengeance 
is complete.’ ” 

“ Villain ! and you mixed it with the food of this impris- 
oned Lady, to the dishonor of thy master’s house ? ” 

“ To redeem the insulted honor of my master’s house, I 
mixed the contents of the packet with the jar of succory- 
water : They seldom fail to drain it, and the woman loves 
it over all.” 

“ It was a work of hell,” said the Lady Lochleven, “both 
the asking and the granting. — Away, wretched man, let 
us see if aid be yet too late ! ” 

“They will not admit us, madam, save we enter by 
force — I have been twice at the door, but can obtain no 
entrance.” 

“ We will beat it level with the ground, if needful — And 


346 


THE ABBOT 


hold — summon Randal hither instantly. — Randal, here is 
a foul and evil chance befallen — send off a boat instantly 
to Kinross, the Chamberlain Luke Lundin is said to have 
skill — Fetch off, too, that foul witch Nicneven ; she shall 
first counteract her own spell, and then be burned to 
ashes in the island of Saint Serf.* Away — away — Tell 
them to hoist sail and ply oar, as ever they would have 
good of the Douglas’s hand ! ” 

“Mother Nicneven will not be lightly found, or fetched 
hither on these conditions,” answered Dryfesdale. 

“Then grant her full assurance of safety — Look to 
it, for thine own life must answer for this Lady’s re- 
covery.” 

“ I might have guessed that,” said Dryfesdale, sullenly ; 
“ but it is my comfort I have avenged mine own cause, as 
well as yours. She hath scoffed and scripped at me, and 
encouraged her saucy minion of a page to ridicule my stiff 
gait and slow speech, h felt it borne in upon me that I 
was to be avenged upon them.” 

“ Go to the western turret,” said the lad^, “ and remain 
there in ward until we see how this gear will terminate. I 
know thy resolved disposition — thou wilt not attempt 
escape.” 

“Not were the walls of the turret of egg-shells, and the 
lake sheeted with ice,” said Dryfesdale. “ I am well taught, 
and strong-in belief, that man does naught of himself ; he 
is but the foam on the billow, which rises, bubbles, and 
bursts, not by its own effort, but by the mightier impulse 
of fate which urges him. Yet, lady, if I may advise, amid 
this zeal for the life of the Jezebel of Scotland, forget not 
what is due to thine own honor, and keep the matter secret 
as you may.” 

So saying, the gloomy fatalist turned from her, and 
stalked off with sullen composure to the place of confine- 
ment allotted to him. 

His lady caught at his last hint, and only expressed her 
fear that the prisoner had partaken of some unwholesome 
food, and was dangerously ill. The castle was soon alarmed 
and in confusion. Randal was despatched to the shore to 
fetch off Lundin, with such remedies as could counteract 
poison ; and wdth farther instructions to bring Mother Nic- 

* [At an early period this small island, near the south end of Lochleven, 
contained a religious house of the Culdees, dedicated to Saint Serf or Ser- 
vanus. It afterward became a cell or priory of the Canon Regulars of 
Saint Augustine, belonging to St. Andrews.] 


THE ABD07\ 


347 


neven, if she couid be found, with full power to pledge 
the Lady of Lochleven’s word for her safety. 

Meanwhile the Lady of Lochleven herself held parley 
at the door of the Queen’s apartment, and in vain urged 
the page to undo it. 

“ Foolish boy ! ” she said,” “ thine own life and thy Lady’s 
are at stake — Open, I say, or we will cause the door to be 
broken down.” 

“ I may not open the door without my royal mistress’s 
orders,” answered Roland ; “she has been very ill, and now 
she slumbers — if you wake her by using violence, let the 
consequences be on you and your followers.” 

“ Was ever woman in a strait so fearful ! ” exclaimed the 
Lady of Lochleven — “ At least, thou rash boy, beware that 
no one tastes the food, but especially the jar of succory- 
water.” 

She then hastened to the turret, where Dryfesdale had 
composedly resigned himself to imprisonment. She found 
him reading, and demanded of hfm, “ Was thy fell potion 
of speedy operation ? ” 

“ Slow,” answered the steward. “ The hag asked me 
which I chose— I told her I loved a slow and sure revenge. 
‘Revenge,’ said I, ‘is the highest-flavored draught which 
man tastes upon earth, and he should sip it by little and 
little — not drain it up greedily at once.’ ” 

“ Against whom, unhappy man, couldst thou nourish so 
fell a revenge ? ” 

“ I had many objects, but the chief was that insolent page.” 

“The boy! — thou inhuman man,” exclaimed the lady; 
“ what could he do to deserve thy malice ? ” ^ 

“ He rose in your favor, and you graced him with your 
commissions — that was one thing. He rose in that of 
George Douglas also— that was another. He was the 
favorite of the Calvinistic Henderson, who hated me be- 
cause my spirit disowns a separated priesthood. The 
Moabitish Queen held him dear— winds from each oppos- 
ing point bTew in his favor— the old servitor of your house 
was held lightly among ye — above all, from the first time 
I saw his face, I longed to destroy him.” 

“What fiend have I nurtured in my house 1” replied the 
Lady. “ May God forgive me the sin of having given thee 
food and raiment ! ” 

“You might not choose. Lady,” answered the steward. 
“Long ere this castle was builded— ay, long ere the islet 
which%ustains it reared its head above the ’olue water, I 


348 


THE ABBOT. 


was destined to be your faithful slave, and you to be my 
ungrateful mistress. Remember you not when I plunged 
amid the victorious French, in the time of this lady’s 
mother, and brought off your husband, when those who 
had hung at the same breasts with him dared not attempt 
the rescue ? — Remember how I plunged into the lake when 
your grandson’s skiff was overtaken by the tempest, board- 
ed and steered her safe to the land. Lady— the servant of 
a Scottish baron is he who regards not his own life, or that 
of any other, save his master. And, for the death of the 
woman, I had tried the potion on her sooner, had not Mas- 
ter George been her taster. Her death— would it not be 
the happiest news that Scotland ever heard ? Is she not 
of the bloody Guisian stock, whose sword was so often red 
with the blood of God’s saints ? Is she not the daughter 
of the wretched tyrant James, whom Heaven cast down 
from his kingdom, and his pride, even as the Kino- of 
Babylon was smitten ?” 

“ Peace, villain ! said the Lady — a thousand varied 
recollections thronging on her mind at the mention of her 
royal lover’s name ; “ Peace, and disturb not the ashes of 
the dead — of the royal, of the unhappy dead. Read thy 
Bible ; and may God grant thee to avail thyself better of 
its contents than thou hast yet done ! ” She departed 
hastily, and as she reached the next apartment, the tears 
rose in her eyes so hastily, that she was compelled to stop 
and use her kerchief to dry them. “ I expected not this,” 
she said, “ no more than to have drawn water from the 
dry flint, or sap from a withered tree. I saw with a dry 
eye the apostasy and shame of George Douglas, the hope 
of my son’s house— the child of my love ; and yet I now 
weep for him who has so long lain in his grave — for him 
to whorn I owe it, that his daughter can make a scoffinor 
and a jest of my name ! But she is his daughter — my 
heart, haidened against her for so manv causes relents 
when a glance of her eye places her father unexpectedly 
before me— and as often her likeness to that true dauo-h- 
ter of the house of Guise, her detested mother, has again 
confirmed my resolution. But she must not — must not 
die in my house, and bv so foul a practice. Thank God, 
the operation of the potion is slow, and may be counter- 
acted. I will to her apartment once more. But oh ! that 
hardened villain, whose fidelity was held in such esteem 
and had such high proof of ! What miracle can unite so 
much wickedness and so much truth in one bosom !” 


THE ABBO'T. 


349 


The Lady of Lochleven was not aware liow far minds of 
a certain gloomy and determined cast by nature, may be 
warped by a keen sense of petty injuries and insults, com- 
bining with the love of gain, and sense of self-interest, and 
amalgamated with the crude, wild, and indigested fanatical 
opinions wliich this man had gathered among the crazy 
sectaries of Germany ; or how far the doctrines of fatalism, 
which he had embraced so decidedly, sear the human con- 
science, by representing our actions as the result of in- 
evitable necessity. 

During her visit to the prisoner, Roland had communi- 
cated to Catherine the tenor of the conversation lie had had 
with her at the door of the apartment. The quick intelli- 
gence of that lively maiden instantly comprehended the 
outline of what was believed to have happened, but her 
prejudices hurried her beyond the truth. 

“ They meant to have poisoned us,” she exclaimed in 
horror, “ and there stands the fatal liquor which should 
have done the deed ! — Ay, as soon as Douglas ceased to be 
our taster, our food was likely to be fatally seasoned. 
Thou, Roland, who shouldst have made the essay, wert 
readily doomed to die with us. Oh, dearest Lady Fleming, 
pardon, pardon, for the injuries I said to you in my anger 
— your words were prompted by Heaven to save our lives 
and especially that of the injured Queen. But what have 
we now to do ? that old crocodile of the lake will be pres- 
ently back to shed her hypocritical tears over our dying 
agonies. — Lady Fleming, what shall we do ? ” 

“Our Lady help us in our need !” she replied ; “how 
should I tell ? — unless we were to make our plaint to the 
Regent.” 

“ Make our plaint to the devil,” said Catherine, impa- • 
tiently, “and accuse his dam at the foot of his burning 
throne !— The Queen still sleeps— we must gain time. The 
poisoning hag must not know her scheme has miscarried ; 
the old envenomed spider has but too many ways of mend- 
ing her broken web. — The jar of succory-water,” said she 
— Roland, if thou be’st a man, help me — empty the jar 
on the chimney or from the window — make such waste 
among the viands as if we had made our usual meal, and 
leave the fragments on cup and porringer, but taste noth- 
ing as thou lovest thy life. I will sit by the Queen, and 
tell her at her waking, in what a fearful pass we stand. 
Her sharp wit and ready spirit will teach us what is best 
to be done. Meanwhile, till further notice, observe, Ro- 


350 


THE ABBOT. 


land, that the Queen is in a state of torpor — that Lady 
Fleming is indisposed — that character” (speaking in a 
lower tone) “will suit her best, and save lier wits some 
labor in vain. I am not so much indisposed, thou under- 
standest” 

“ And I ? ” said the page 

“You?” replied Catherine, “you are quite well — 
who thinks it worth while to poison puppy-dogs or 
pages ? ” 

“ Does this levity become the time ?” asked the page. 

“ It does, it does,” answered Catherine Seyton ; “ if the 
Queen approves, I see plainly how this disconcerted at- 
tempt may do us good service.” 

She went to work while she spoke, eagerly assisted by 
Roland. The breakfast table soon displayed the appear- 
ance as if the meal had been eaten as usual ; and the ladies 
retired as softly as possible into the Queen’s sleeping 
apartment. At a new summons of the Lady Lochleven, 
the page undid the door, and admitted her into the ante- 
room, asking her pardon for having withstood her, alleg- 
ing in excuse, that the Queen had fallen into a heavy 
slumber since she had broken her fast. 

“She has eaten and drunken, then?” said the Lady of 
Lochleven. 

“Surely,” replied the page, “according to her Grace’s 
ordinary custom, unless upon the fasts of the church.” 

“ The jar,” she said, hastily examining it, “it is empty — 
drank the Lady Mary the whole of this water?” 

“ A large part, madam ; and I heard the Lady Catherine 
Seyton jestingly upbraid the Lady Mary Fleming with 
having taken more than a just share of w’hat remained, so 
that but little fell to her own lot.” 

“And are they well in health ? ” said the Lady of Loch- 
leven. 

“ Lady Fleming,” said the page, “complains of lethargy, 
and looks duller than usual ; and the Lady Catherine 
of Seyton feels her head somewhat more giddy than is her 
wont.” 

He raised his voice a little as he said these words, to 
apprise the ladies of the part assigned to each of them, 
and not, perhaps, without the wish of conveying to the 
ears of Catherine the page-like jest w^hich lurked in the 
allotment. 

“ I will enter the Queen’s bedchamber,” said the Lady 
Lochleven ; “my business is express.” 


THE ABBOT. 


351 


As she advanced to the door, the voice of Catherine 
Seyton was heard from within — “No one can enter here 
— the Queen sleeps.” 

“ I will not be controlled, young lady,” replied the Lady 
of Lochleven ; “ there is, I wot, no inner bar, and I will 
enter in your despite.” 

“ There is, indeed, no inner bar,” answered Catherine, 
firmly, “but there are the staples where that bar should 
be ; and into those staples have I thrust mine arm, like an 
ancestress of your own, when, better employed than the 
Douglases of our days, she thus defended the bedchamber 
of her sovereign against murderers. Try your force, then, 
and see whether a Seyton cannot rival in courage a 
maiden of the house of Douglas.” 

“ I dare not attempt the pass at such risk,” said the Lady 
of Lochleven. “ Strange, that this Princess, with all that 
justly attaches to her as blameworthy, should preserve 
such empire over the minds of her attendants. — Damsel, I 
give thee my honor that I come for the Queen’s safety 
and advantage. Awaken her, if thou lovest her, and pray 
her leave that I may enter — I will retire from the door the 
whilst.” 

“ Thou wilt not awaken the Queen ? ” said the Lady 
Fleming. 

“ What choice have we ? ” said the ready-witted maiden, 
“unless you deem it better to wait till the Lady Lochleven 
herself plays lady of the bedchamber. Her fit of patience 
will not last long, and the Queen must be prepared to 
meet her.” 

“ But thou wilt bring back her Grace’s fit by thus dis- 
turbing her.” 

“ Heaven forbid ! ” replied Catherine ; “ but if so, it must 
pass for an effect of the poison. I hope better things, and 
that the Queen will be able, when she wakes, to form her 
own jud^ent in this terrible crisis. Meanwhile, do thou, 
dear Lady Fleming, practise to look as dull and heavy as 
the alertness of thy spirit will permit.” 

Catherine kneeled by the side of the Queen’s bed, and, 
kissing her hand repeatedly, succeeded at last in awaken- 
ing without alarming her. "She seemed surprised to find 
that she was ready dressed, but sat up in her bed, and ap- 
peared so perfectly composed, that Catherine Seyton, 
without farther preamble, judged it safe to inform her of 
the predicament in which they were placed. Mary turned 
pale, and crossed herself again and again, when she heard 


352 


THE ABBOT. 


the imminent danger in which she had stood. But, like 
the Ulysses of Homer, 


Hardly waking yet 

Sprung in her mind the momentary wit, 

and she at once understood her situation, with the dangers 
and advantages that attended it. 

“We cannot do better,” she said, after her hasty confer- 
ence with Catherine, pressing her at the same time to her 
bosom, and kissing her forehead ; “we cannot do better 
than to follow the scheme so happily devised by thy quick 
wit and bold affection. Undo the door to the Lady Loch- 
leven — She shall meet her match in art, though not in per- 
fidy. Fleming, draw close the curtain, and get thee behind 
it — thou art a better tire-woman than an actress ; do but 
breathe heavily, and, if thou wilt, groan slightly, and it will 
top thy part. Hark ! they come. Now', Catherine of Me- 
dicis, may thy spirit inspire me, for a cold northern brain 
is too blunt for this scene ! ” 

Ushered by Catherine Seyton, and stepping as light as 
she could, the Lady Lochleven w^as shown into the twilight 
apartment, and conducted to the side of the couch, w’here 
Mary, pallid and exhausted from a sleepless night, and the 
subsequent agitation of the morning, lay extended so list- 
lessly as might w^ell confirm the worst fears of her hostess. 

“ Now, God forgive us our sins ! ” said the Lady of Loch- 
leven, forgetting her pride, and throwing herself on her 
knees by the side of the bed ; “ It is too true — She is mur- 
dered ! ” 

“Who is in the chamber ?” said Mary, as if aw’aking 
from a heavy sleep. “ Seyton, Fleming, where are you ? 
I heard a strange voice. Who w'aits ? — Call Courcelles.” 

“Alas! her memory is at Holyrood, though her body is 
at Lochleven. — Forgive, madam,” continued the Lady, “if 
I call your attention to me — I am Margaret Erskine, of 
the house of Mar, by marriage Lady Douglas of Loch- 
leven.” 

“Oh, our gentle hostess,” answered the Queen, “who 
hath such care of our lodgings and of our diet- — We cum- 
ber you too much and too long, good I^ady of Lochleven ; 
but we now trust your task of hospitality is w’ell-nigh 
ended.” 

“ Her words go like a knife through my heart,” said the 
Lady of Lochleven — “With a breaking heart I pray your 


THE ABBOT. 


353 


Grace to tell me what is your ailment, that aid may be had, 
if there be yet time.” 

“ Nay, my ailment,” replied the Queen, “ is nothing worth 
telling, or worth a leech’s notice — my limbs feel heavy — 
my heart feels cold — a prisoner’s limbs and heart are rarely 
otherwise — fresh air, methinks, and freedom, would soon 
revive me ; but as the Estates have ordered it, death alone 
can break my prison doors.” 

“Were it possible, madam,” said the Lady, “that your 
liberty could restore your perfect health, I would myself 
encounter the resentment of the Regent — of my son, Sir 
William — of my whole friends, rather than you should meet 
your fate in this castle.” 

“ Alas ! madam,” said the Lady Fleming, who conceived 
the time propitious to show that her own address had been 
held too lightly of ; “ it is but trying what good freedom 
may work upon us ; for myself, I think a free walk on the 
greensward would do me much good at heart.” 

The Lady of Lochleven rose from the bedside, and dart- 
ed a penetrating look at the elder valetudinary. “ Are you 
so evil-disposed, Lady Fleming ? ” 

“ Evil-disposed indeed, madam,” replied the court dame, 
“and more especially since breakfast.” 

“ Help ! help ! ” exclaimed Catherine, anxious to break 
off a conversation which boded her schemes no good ; 
“ help ! I say, help ! the Queen is about to pass away. Aid 
her, Lady Lochleven, if you be a woman ! ” 

The Lady hastened to support the Queen’s head, who, 
turning her eyes toward her with an air of great languor, 
exclaimed, “Thanks, my dearest Lady of Lochleven — not- 
withstanding some' passages of late, I have never miscon- 
strued or misdoubted your affection to our house. It was 
proved, as I have heard, before I was born.” 

The Lady Lochleven sprung from the floor on which she 
had again knelt, and, having paced the apartment in great 
disorder, flung open the lattice, as if to get air. 

“Now, Our Lady forgive me!” said Catherine to her- 
self. “ How deep must the love of sarcasm be implanted 
in the breasts of us women, since the Queen, with all her 
sense, will risk ruin rather than rein in her wit ! ” She then 
adventured, stooping over the Queen’s person, to press her 
arm with her hand, saying, at the same time, “ For God’s 
sake, madam, restrain yourself ! ” 

“ Thou art loo for^vard, maiden,” said the Queen ; but 
immediately added, in a low whisper, “borgive me, Cath- 

23 


354 


THE ABBOT. 


erine ; but when I felt the hag’s murderous hands busy 
about my head and neck, I felt such disgust and hatred, 
that I must have said something, or died. But I will be 
schooled to better behavior — only see that thou let her not 
touch me.” 

“Now, God be praised!” said the Lady Lochleven, 
withdrawing her head from the window, “ the boat comes 
as fast as sail and oar can send wood through water. It 
brings the leech and a female — certainly, from the appear- 
ance, the very person I was in quest of. Were slie but 
well out of the castle, with our honor safe, I would that 
she were on the top of the wildest mountain in Norway ; 
or I would I had been there myself, ere I had undertaken 
this trust.” 

While she thus expressed herself, standing apart at one 
window, Roland Graeme, from the other, watched the boat 
bursting through the waters of the lake, which glided from 
its side in ripple and in foam. He, too, became sensible 
that at the stern was seated the medical Chamberlain, clad 
in his black velvet cloak ; and that his own relative, Mag- 
dalen Graeme, in her assumed character of Mother Nic- 
neven, stood in the bow, her hands clasped together, and 
pointed toward the castle, and her attitude, even at that 
distance, expressing enthusiastic eagerness to arrive at the 
landing-place. They arrived there accordingly, and while 
the supposed witch was detained in a room beneath, the 
physician was ushered to the Queen’s apartment, which he 
entered with all due professional solemnity. Catherine 
had, in the meanwhile, fallen back from the Queen’s bed, 
and taken an opportunity to whisper to Roland, “Me- 
thinks from the information of the thre^bare velvet cloak 
and the solemn beard, there would be little trouble in halter- 
ing yonder ass. But thy grandmother, Roland — thy grand- 
mother’s zeal will ruin us, if she get not a hint to dissemble.” 

Roland, without reply, glided toward the door of the 
apartment, crossed the parlor, and safely entered the ante- 
chamber ; but when he attempted to pass farther, the word 

Back ! Back ! echoed from one to the other, by two men 
armed with carabines, convinced him that the Lady of 
Lochleven’s suspicions had not, even in the midst of her 
alarms, been so far lulled to sleep as to omit the precau- 
tion of stationing sentinels on her prisoners. He was 
compelled, therefore, to return to the parlor, or audience- 
chamber, in which he found the Lady of the castle in con- 
ference with her learned leech. 


THE ABBOT. 


355 


“ A truce with your cant phrase and your solemn fop- 
pery, Lundin,” in such terms she accosted the man of art, 
“ and let me know instantly, if thoii canst tell, whether 
this lady hath swallowed aught that is less than whole- 
some ? ” 

“ Nay, but, good lady — honored patroness — to whom I 
am alike bondsman in my medical and official capacity, 
deal reasonably with me. If this, mine illustrious patient, 
will not answer a question, saving with sighs and moans — 
if that other honorable lady will do naught but yawn in 
my face when I inquire after the diagnostics — and if 
that other young damsel, who I profess is a comely maid- 
en ” 

“Talk not to me of comeliness or of damsels,” said the 
Lady of Lochleven, “I say, are they evil-disposed? — In 
one word, man, have they taken poison, ay or no ? ” 

“ Poisons, madam,” said the learned leech, “ are of vari- 
ous sorts. There is your animal poison, as the lepus mar- 
inus, as mentioned by Dioscorides and (S^alen — there are 
mineral and semi-mineral poisons, as those compounded of 
sublimate, regulus of antimony, vitriol, and the arsenical 
salts — there are your poisons from herbs and vegetables, 
as the aqua cymbalariae, opium, aconitum, cantharides, and 
the like — there are also ” 

“Now, out upon thee for a learned fool! and I myself 
am no better for expecting an oracle from such a log,” 
said the Lady. 

“Nay, but if your ladyship will have patience — if I 
knew what food they have partaken of, or could see but 
the remnants of what they have last eaten-— for as to the 
external and internal symptoms I can discover naught 
like ; for, as Galen saith in his second book de Anti- 
dotis ” 

“Away, fool!” said the Lady; “send me that hag 
hither ; she shall avouch what it was that she hath given 
to the wretch Dryfesdale, or the pilniewinks and thumbi- 
kins shall wrench it out of her finger-joints ! ” 

“ Art hath no enemy unless the ignorant,” said the mor- 
tified Doctor ; veiling, however, his remark under the 
Latin version, and stepping apart into a corner to watch 
the result. 

In a minute or two Magdalen Graeme entered the apait- 
ment, dressed as we have described her at the revel, but 
with her muffler thrown back, and all affectation of dis- 
guise. She was attended by two guards, of whose pres- 


356 


THE ABB07\ 


ence slie did not seem even to be conscious, and who fol- 
lowed her with an air of embarrassment and timidity, 
which was probably owing to their belief in her super- 
natural power, coupled with the effect produced bv iier 
bold and undaunted demeanor. She confronted the Lady 
of Lochleven, who seemed to endure with high disdain 
the confidence of her air and manner. 

“ Wretched woman ! ” said the Lady, after essaying fora 
moment to bear her down, before she addressed her, by the 
stately severity of her look, “ what was that powder which 
thou didst give to a servant of this house, by name Jasper 
Dryfesdale, that he might work out witli it some slow and 
secret vengeance ? Confess its nature and properties, or, 
by the honor of Douglas, I give thee to fire and stake 
before the sun is lower!” 

“Alas!” said Magdalen Graeme in reply, “and when 
became a Douglas or a Douglas’s man so unfurnished of his 
means of revenge, that he should seek them at the hands 
of a poor and soUtary woman ? The towers in which your 
captives pine away into unpitied graves yet stand fast on 
their foundation — the crimes wrouglit in them have not 
yet burst their vaults asunder — your men have still their 
cross-bows, pistolets, and daggers — why need you seek to 
heibs or charms for the execution of your revenges ?” 

“Hear me, foul hag,” said the Lady Lochleven—“ but 
what avails speaking to thee ? Bring Dryfesdale hither, 
and let them be confronted together.” 

“You may spare your retainers the labor,” replied Mag- 
dalen Graeme. “ I came not here to be confronted with a 
base groom, nor to answer the interrogatories of James’s 
heretical leman— I came to speak with the Queen of Scot- 
land — Give place there ! ” 

And while the Lady Lochleven stood confounded at her 
boldness, and at the reproach she had cast upon her, Mao-- 
dalen Giaeme strode past her into the bedciiamber of the 
Queen, and, kneeling on the floor, made a salutation as if, 
in the Oriental fashion, she meant to touch the earth with 
her forehead. 

“Hail, princess!” she said, “hail, daughter of many a 
King, but graced above tliem all in that thou art called to 
suffer for the true faith !— hail to thee, the pure gold of 
whose crown has been tried in the. seven-times heated fur- 
nacj of affliction — hear the comfort which God and our 
Lady send thee by the mouth of thy unworthy servant. 
tJut first and stooping her head, she crossed herself 


THE ABBOT 


357 


repeatedly, and, still upon her knees, appeared to be rapidly 
reciting some formula of devotion. 

“ Seize her, and drag her to the massy-more ! — to the 
deepest dungeon with the sorceress, whose master, the 
devil, could alone have inspired her with boldness enough 
to insult the mother of Douglas in his own castle h” 

Thus spoke the incensed Lady of Lochleven, but the 
physician presumed to interpose. 

“ I pray of you, honored madam, she be permitted to take 
her course without interruption. Peradventure we shall 
learn something concerning the nostrum she hath vent- 
ured, contrary to law and the rules of art, to adhibit to 
these ladies, through the medium of the steward Dryfes- 
dale.” 

“ For a fool,” replied the Lady of Lochleven, “ thou hast 
counselled wisely — I will bridle my resentment till their 
conference be over.” 

“ God forbid, honored lady,” said Doctor Lundin, “ that 
you should suppress it longer — nothing may more endan- 
ger the frame of your honored body ; and truly, if there be 
witchcraft in this matter, it is held by the vulgar, and even 
by solid authors on Demonology, that three scruples of the 
ashes of the witch, when she hath been well and carefully 
burned at a stake, is a grand Catholicon in such matter, 
even as they prescribe crinis canis rabidly a hair of the dog 
that bit the patient, in cases of hydrophobia. I warrant 
neither treatment being out of tlie regular practice of the 
schools ; but in the present case there can be little harm in 
trying the conclusion upon this old necromancer and 
quacksalver — -fiat experimeiitum (as we say) m corpora viliP 
Peace, fool ! ” said the Lady, “ she is about to speak.” 

At that moment Magdalen Graeme arose from her knees, 
and turned her countenance on the Queen, at the same 
time advancing her foot, extending her arm, and assuming 
the mien and attitude of a sibyl in frenzy. As her gray 
hair floated back from beneath her coif, and her eye 
gleamed fire from under its shaggy eyebrow, the effect of 
her expressive though emaciated features was heightened 
by an enthusiasm approaching to insanity, and her appear- 
ance struck with awe all who were present. Her eyes for 
a time glanced wildly around, as if seeking for something 
to aid her in collecting her powers of expression, and her 
lips had a nervous and quivering motion, as those of one 
who would fain speak, yet rejects as inadequate the words 
which present themselves. Mary herself caught the in- 


358 


THE ABBOT. 


fection as if by a sort of magnetic influence, and raising 
herself from her bed, without being able to withdraw heV 
eyes from those of Magdalen, waited as if for the oracle of 
a Pythoness, She waited not long, for no sooner had tiie 
enthusiast collected herself than her gaze became intensely 
steady, her features assumed a determined energy, and 
when she began to speak the words flowed from her with 
a profuse fluency which might have passed for inspiration, 
and which, perhaps, she herself mistook for such. 

“Arise,” she said, “Queen of France and of England! 
Arise, Lioness of Scotland, and be not dismayed, though 
the nets of the hunters have encircled thee ! Stoop not to 
feign with the false ones, whom thou shalt soon meet in 
the field. The issue of battle is with the God of armies, 
but by battle thy cause shall be tried. Lay aside, then, 
the arts of lower mortals, and assume those wLich become 
a Queen ! True defender of the only true faith, the ar- 
mory of heaven is open to thee ! Faithful daughter of the 
church, take the keys of Saint Peter, to bind and to loose ! 
Royal Princess of the land, take the sword of Saint Paul, 
to smite and to shear ! There is darkness in thy destiny ; 
but not in these towers, not under the rule of their haughty 
mistress, shall that destiny be closed. In other lands the 
lioness may crouch to the power of the tigress, but not in 
her own— not in Scotland shall the Queen of Scotland long 
remain captive — nor is the fate of the royal Stewart in the 
hands of the traitor Douglas. Let the Lady of Lochleven 
double her bolts and deepen her dungeons, they shall not 
retain thee — each element shall give thee its assistance ere 
thou shalt continue captive— the land shall lend its earth- 
quakes, the water its waves, the air its tempests, the fire 
its devouring flames, to desolate this house, rather than it 
shall continue the place of thy captivity. Hear this, and 
tremble, all ye who fight against the light, for she says it, 
to whom it hath been assured ! ” 

She was silent, and the astonished physician said, “ If 
there was ever an Energume7ie, or possessed demoniac, in 
our days, there is a devil speaking with that woman’s 
tongue ! ” 

Practice, said the Lady of Lochleven, recovering her 
surprise; “here is all practice and imposture. To the 
dungeon with her ! ” 

“ Lady of Lochleven,” said Mary, arising from her bed, 
and coming forward with her wonted dignity, “ ere you 
make arrest on any one in our presence, hear me but one 


THE ABBOT. 


359 


word. I have done you some wrong — I believed you privy 
to the murderous purpose of your vassal, and I deceived 
you in suffering you to believe it had taken effect. I did 
you wrong, Lady of Lochleven, for I perceive your purpose 
to aid me was sincere. We tasted not of the liquid, nor 
are we now sick, save that we languish for our freedom.” 

“ It is avowed like Mary of Scotland,” said Magdalen 
Graeme ; “and know, besides, that had the Queen drained 
the draught to the dregs, it was harmless as the water from 
a sainted spring. Trow ye, proud woman,” she added, ad- 
dressing herself to the Lady of Lochleven, “ that I — I — 
would have been the wretch to put poison in the hands of 
a servant or vassal of the house of Lochleven, knowing 
whom that house contained ? as soon would I have fur- 
nished drug to slay my own daughter ! ” 

“ Am I thus bearded in mine own castle ? ” said the 
Lady ; “ to the dungeon with her! — she shall abye what is 
due to the vender of poisons and practiser of witchcraft.” 

“Yet hear me for an instant, Lady of Lochleven,” said 
Mary ; “ and do you,” to Magdalen, “ be silent at my com- 
mand. Your steward, lady, has by confession attempted 
my life, and those of my household, and this woman hath 
done her best to save them, by furnishing him with what 
was harmless in place of the fat^il drugs which he ex- 
pected. Methinks I propose to ypu but a fair exchange 
when I say I forgive your vassal with all my heart, and 
leave vengeance to God, and to his conscience, so that you 
also forgive the boldness of this woman in your presence ; 
for we trust you do not hold it as a crime, that she sub- 
stituted an innocent beverage for the mortal poison which 
was to have drenched our cup.” 

“ Heaven forefend, madam,” said the Lady, “that I should 
account that a crime which saved the house of Douglas 
from a foul breach of honor and hospitality ! We have 
written to our son touching our vassal’s delict, and he must 
abide his doom, ^vhich will most likely be death. Touch- 
ing this woman, her trade is damnable by Scripture, and 
is mortally punished by the wise laws of our ancestry — she 
also must abide her doom.” 

“ And have I then,” said the Queen, “ no claim on the 
house of Lochleven for the wrong I have so nearly suf- 
fered within their walls ? I ask but in requital the life of 
a frail and aged woman, whose brain, as yourself may 
judge, seems somewhat affected by years and suffering.” 

“ If the Lady Mary,” replied the intlexible Lady of Loch- 


360 


THE ABBOT. 


leven, “ hath been menaced with wrong in the house of 
Douglas, it may be regarded as some compensation, that 
her complots have cost that house the exile of a valued 
son.” 

“ Plead no more for me, my gracious Sovereign,” said 
Magdalen Graeme, ‘‘ nor abase yourself to ask so much as 
a gray hair of my head at her hands. I knew the risk at 
which I served my Church and my Queen, and was ever 
prompt to pay my poor life as the ransom. It is a comfort 
to think, that in slaying me, or in restraining my freedom, 
or even in injuring that single gray hair, the house, whose 
honor she boasts so highly, will have filled up the measure 
of their shame by the breach of their solemn written assur- 
ance of safety.” And taking from her bosom a paper, she 
handed it to the Queen. 

“ It is a solemn assurance of safety in life and limb,” said 
Queen Mary, “with space to come and go, under the hand 
and seal of the Chamberlain of Kinross, granted to Mag- 
dalen Graeme, commonly called Mother Nicneven, in con- 
sideration of her consenting to put herself, for the space 
of twenty-four hours, if required, within the iron gate of 
the Castle of Lochleven.” 

“ Knave ! ” said the Lady, turning to the Chamberlain, 

•“ how dared you grant her such a protection ?” 

“ It was by your Ladyship’s orders, transmitted by Ran- 
dal, as he can bear witness,” replied Doctor Lundin ; “ nay, 

I am only like the pharmacopolist, who compounds the 
drugs after the order of the mediciner.” 

“ I remember — I remember,” answered the Lady ; “ but 
I meant the assurance only to be used in case, by residing 
in another jurisdiction, she could not have been appre- 
hended under our warrant.” 

“Nevertheless,” said the Queen, “the Lady of Loch- 
leven is bound by the action of her deputy in grantincr the 
assurance.” ^ 

“Madam,” replied the Lady, “the house of Douglas 
have never broken their safe-conduct, and never will— too 
deeply did they suffer by such a breach of trust, exercised < 
on themselves, when your Grace’s ancestor, the second | 
James, m defiance of the rights of hospitality, and of his ^ 
own written assurance of safety, poniarded the brave Earl 
of Douglas With his own hand, and within two yards of the 'i 
social board, at which he had just before sat the King of 
bcotland s honored guest.” - 

“Methmks,” said the Queen, carelessly, “in considera- 


THE ABBOT. 


361 

tion of SO very recent and enormous a tragedy, which I 
think only chanced some six-score years a-gone, the Doug- 
lases should have shown themselves less tenacious of the 
company of their sovereigns than you, Lady of Lochleven, 
seem to be of mine.” 

“Let Randal,” said the Lady, “take the hag back to 
Kinross, and set her at full liberty, discharging her from 
our bounds in future, on peril of her head. — And let your 
wisdom,” to the Chamberlain, “keep her company. And 
fear not for your character, though I send you in such com- 
pany ; for, granting her to be a witch, it would be a waste 
of faggots to burn you for a wizard.” 

The crest-fallen Chamberlain was preparing to depart ; 
but Magdalen Graeme, collecting herself, was about to 
reply, when the Queen interposed, saying, “ Good mother, 
we heartily thank you for your unfeigned zeal toward our 
person, and pray you, as our liege-woman, that you abstain 
from whatever may lead you into personal danger ; and, 
farther, it is our will that you depart without a word of 
farther parley with any one in this castle. For thy present 
guerdon, take this small reliquary — it was given to us by 
our uncle the Cardinal, and hath had the benediction of 
the Holy Father himself ; and now depart in peace and in 
silence. — For you, learned sir,” continued the Queen, ad- 
vancing to the Doctor, who made his reverence in a man- 
ner doubly embarrassed by the awe of the Queen’s pres- 
ence, which made him fear to do too little, and by the 
apprehension of his lady’s displeasure, in case he should 
chance to do too much — “for you, learned sir, as it was not 
your fault, though surely our own good fortune, that we 
did not need your skill at this time, it would not become 
us, however circumstanced, to suffer our leech to leave us 
without such guerdon as we can offer.” 

With these words, and with the grace which never for- 
sook her, though, in the present case, there might lurk 
under it a little gentle ridicule, she offered a small em- 
broidered purse to the Chamberlain, who, with extended 
hand and arched back, his learned face stooping until a 
physiognomist might have practised the metoposcopical 
science upon it, as seen from behind betwixt his gamba- 
does, was about to accept of the professional recompense 
offered by so fair as well as illustrious a hand. But the 
Lady interposed, and, regarding the Chamberlain, said 
aloud, “No servant of our house, without instantly relin- 
quishing that character, and incurring withal our highest 


362 


THE ABBOT. 


displeasure, shall dare receive any gratuity at the hand of 
the Lady Mary.” 

Sadly and slowly the Chamberlain raised his depressed 
stature into the perpendicular attitude, and left the apart- 
ment dejectedly, followed by Magdalen Graeme, after, 
with mute but expressive gesture, she had kissed the reli- 
quary with which the Queen had presented her, and, rais- 
ing her clasped hands and uplifted eyes toward Heaven, 
had seemed to entreat a benediction upon the royal dame. 
As she left the castle and went toward the quay where the 
boat lay, Roland Graeme, anxious to communicate with 
her if possible, threw himself in her way, and might have 
succeeded in exchanging a few words with her, as she was 
guarded only by the dejected Chamberlain and his halber- 
diers, but she seemed to have taken, in its most strict and 
literal acceptation, the command to be silent which she 
had received from the Queen ; for, to the repeated signs 
of her grandson, she only replied by laying her finger on 
her lip. Dr. Lundin was not so reserved. Regret for the 
handsome gratuity, and for the compulsory task of self- 
denial imposed on him, had grieved the spirit of that 
worthy officer and learned mediciner — “Even thus, my 
friend,” said he, squeezing the page’s hand as he bade him 
farewell, “is merit rewarded. I came to cure this un- 
happy Lady — and I profess she well deserves the trouble, 
for, say what they will of her, she hath a most winning 
rnanner, a sweet voice, a gracious smile, and a most majes- 
tic wave of her hand. If she was not poisoned, say, my 
dear Master Roland, was that fault of mine, I being ready 
to cure her if she had ? — and now I am denied the permis- 
sion to accept my well-earned honorarium— O Galen ! O 
Hippocrates? is the graduate’s cap and doctor’s scarlet 
brought to this pass ! Frustra fatigamus remediis cegros I ” 

He wiped his eyes, stepped on the gunwale, and the 
boat pushed off from the shore, and went merrily across 
the lake, which was dimpled by the summer wind.* 


A romancer, to use a Scottish phrase, wants but a hair to make a 
whole detail of the steward’s supposed conspiracy against 
the life of Mary is grounded upon an expression in one of her letters 
which affirms that Jasper Dryfesdale, one of the Laird of Lochleven’s 
^rvants, had threatened to murder William Douglas (for his share in the 
^ueen s escape), and averred that he would plant a dagger in Mary’s own 
heart. Chalmers’ Eije of Queen Mary^ vol. i., p. 278. 


THE ABBOT, 


363 


CHAPTER THIRTY-THIRD. 

Death distant ? — No, alas ! he’s ever with us, 

And shakes the dart at us in all our actings ; 

He lurks within our cup, while we’re in health; 

Sits by our sick-bed, mocks our medicines ; 

We cannot walk, or sit, or ride, or travel, 

But Death is by to seize us when he lists. 

The Spanish Father. 

From the agitating scene in the Queen’s presence- 
chamber, the Lady of Lochleven retreated to her own 
apartment, and ordered the steward to be called before 
her. 

“ Have they not disarmed thee, Dryfesdale ? ” she said, 
on seeing him enter, accoutred as usual with sword and 
dagger. 

“No!” replied the old man; “how should they? — 
Your ladyship, when you commanded me to ward, said 
naught of laying down my arms ; and I think none of 
your menials, without your order, or your son’s, dare ap- 
proach Jasper Dryfesdale for such a purpose. Shall I 
now give up my sword to you ?— it is worth little now, for 
it has fought for your house till it is worn down to old 
iron, like the pander’s old chipping-knife.” 

“ You have attempted a deadly crime— poison under 
trust.” 

“Under trust? hem! I know not what your ladyship 
thinks of it, but the world without thinks the trust was 
given you even for that very end ; and you would have 
been well off had it been so ended as I proposed, and you 
neither the worse nor the wiser.” 

“Wretch!” exclaimed the Lady, “and fool as well as 
villain, who could not even execute the crime he had 
planned ! ” 

“I bid as fair for it as man could,” replied Dryfes- 
dale ; “ I went to a woman — a witch and a Papist— if I 
found not poison, it was because it was otherwise predes- 
tined. I tried fair for it ; but the half-done job may be 
clouted, if you will.” 

“ Villain ! I am even now about to send off an express 
messenger to my son, to take order how thou shouldst be 
disposed of. Prepare thyself for death, if thoucanst.” 

“ He that looks on death. Lady,” answered Dryfesdale, 


3^4 


THE ABBOT. 


“as that which he may not shun, and which has its own 
fixed and certain hour, is ever prepared for it. He that 
is hanged in May will eat no flaunes * in midsummer — so 
there is the moan made for the old serving-rnan. But 
whom, pray I, send you on so fair an errand ?“ 

“ There will be no lack of messengers,” answered his 
mistress. 

“ By my hand, but there will,” replied the old man ; 
“ your castle is but poorly manned, considering the watches 
that you must keep, having this charge — There is the 
warder, and two others, whom you discarded for tamper- 
ing with Master George ; then for the warder’s tower, the 
bailie, the donjon — five men mount each guard, and the 
rest must sleep for the most part in their clothes. To send 
away another man were to harass the sentinels to death — 
unthrifty misuse for a household. To take in new soldiers 
were dangerous, the charge requiring tried men, I see 
but one thing for it — I will do your errand to Sir William 
Douglas myself." 

“ That were indeed a resource ! And on what day with- 
in twenty years would it be done ? ” said the Lady. 

“ Even with the speed of man and horse,” said Dryfes- 
dale ; “ for though I care not much about the latter days 
of an old serving-man’s life, yet I would like to know, as 
soon as may be, whether my neck is mine own or the 
hangman’s.” 

“ Holdest thou thy own life so lightly ?” said the Lady. 

“ Else I had wrecked more of that of others,” said the 
predestinariap. What is death ? it is but ceasing to live 
—And what is living? aweary return of light and dark- 
ness, sleeping and waking, being hungered and eating. 
Your dead man needs neither candle nor can, neither fire 
nor feather-bed ; and the joiner’s chest serves him for an 
eternal frieze-jerkin.” 

“Wretched man ! believest thou not that after death 
comes the judgment ? ” 

“ Lady,” answered Dryfesdale, “as my mistress, I may 
not dispute your words ; but, as spiritually speaking, you 
are still but a burner of bricks in Egypt, ignorant of the 
freedom of the saints ; for, as was well shown to me by 
that gifted man, Nicolaus Schoefferbach, who was martyred 
by the bloody Bishop of Munster, he cannot sin who doth 
but execute that which is predestined, since ” 


Pancakes. 


THE ABBOT 


3^5 


“ Silence ! ” said the Lady, interrupting him. “ Answer 
me not with thy bold and presumptuous blasphemy, 
but hear me. Thou hast been long the servant of our 
house” 

“ The born servant of the Douglas — they have had the 
best of me — I served them since I left Lockerbie : I was 
then ten years old, and you may soon add the threescore 
to it.” 

“ Thy foul attempt has miscarried, so thou art guilty 
only in intention. It were a deserved deed to hang thee 
on the warders tower ; and yet, in thy present mind, it 
were but giving a soul to Satan. I take thine offer, then 
— Go hence — here is my packet — I will add to it but a 
line, to desire him to send me a faithful servant or two to 
complete the garrison. Let my son deal with you as he 
will. If thou art wise, thou wilt make for Lockerbie so 
soon as thy foot touches dry land, and let the packet find 
another bearer ; at all rates, look it miscarries not.” 

“ Nay, madam,” replied he, “ I was born, as I said, the 
Douglas’s serv’ant, and I will be no corbie-messenger* in 
mine old age — your message to your son shall be done as 
truly by me as if it concerned another man’s neck. I take 
my leave of your lionor.” 

The Lady issued her commands, and the old man was 
ferried over to the shore, to proceed on his extraordinary 
pilgrimage. It is necessary the reader should accompany 
him on his journey, which Providence had determined 
should not be of long duration. 

On arriving at the village, the steward, although his dis- 
grace had transpired, was readily accommodated with a 
horse, by the Chamberlain’s authority ; and the roads be- 
ing by no means safe, he associated himself with Auch- 
termuchty, the common carrier, in order to travel in his 
company to Edinburgh. 

The worthy wagoner, according to the established cus- 
tom of all carriers, stage-coachmen, and other persons in 
public authority, from the earliest days to the present, 
never wanted good reasons for stopping upon the road as 
often as he would ; and the place which had most captiva- 
tion for him as a resting-place was a change-house, as it 
was termed, not very distant from a romantic deli, well 
known by the name’ of Kiery-craigs.f Attractions of a 

* {Corbie-?nessenger. A messenger who either returns not at all, or too 
late : alluding to Noah’s raven. — Ja7?iuson.‘\ 

f Note L. Kiery Craigs. 


366 


THE ABBOT, 


kind very different from those which arrested the progress 
of John Auchtermuchty and his wains still continue to 
hover round this romantic spot, and none has visited its 
vicinity without a desire to remain long and to return soon. 

Arrived near his favorite hoijuff^ not all the authority of 
Dryfesdale (much diminished indeed by the rumors of his 
disgrace) could prevail on the carrier, obstinate as the 
brutes which he drove, to pass on without his accustomed 
halt, for which the distance he had travelled furnished lit- 
tle or no pretence. Old Keltic, the landlord, who has be- 
stowed his name on a bridge in the neighborhood of his 
quondam dwelling, received the carrier with his usual fes- 
tive cordiality, and adjourned with him into the house, 
under pretence of important business, which, I believe, 
consisted in their emptying together a mutchkin stoup of 
usquebaugh. While the worthy host and his guest w’ere 
thus employed, the discarded steward, with a double por- 
tion of moroseness in his gesture and look, walked discon- 
tentedly into the kitchen of the place, which was occupied 
but by one guest. The stranger was a slight figure, scarce 
above the age of boyhood, and in the dress of a page, but 
bearing an air of haughty aristocratic boldness and even 
insolence in his look and manner, that might have made 
Dryfesdale conclude he had pretensions to superior rank, 
had not his experience taught him how frequently these 
airs of superiority were assumed by the domestics and mil- 
itary retainers of the Scottish nobility.— “ The pilgrim’s 
morning to you, old sir,” said the youth ; “ you come, as I 
think, from Lochleven Castle — What news of our bonny 
Queen ? — a fairer dove was never pent up in so w'retched 
a dovecot.” 

“They that speak of Lochleven, and of those whom its 
walls contain,” answered Dryfesdale, “speak of what con- 
cerns the Douglas ; and they who speak of what concerns 
the Douglas do it at their peril.” 

“ Do you speak from fear of them, old man, or would 
you make a quarrel for them ? I should have deemed 
your age might have cooled your blood.” 

“Never, while there are empty-pated coxcombs at each 
corner to keep it warm.” 

“Ihe sight of thy gray hairs keeps mine cold,” said the 
boy, who had risen up and now sat down again. 

“It was well for thee, or I had cooled it with this holly- 
rod,” replied the steward, “ I think thou be’st one of 
those swash-bucklers, who brawl in ale-houses and taverns ; 


THE ABBOT. 


367 


and who, if words were pikes, and oaths were Andrew Fer- 
raras, would soon place the religion of Babylon in the land 
once more, and the woman of Moab upon the throne.” 

“ Now, by Saint Bennet of Seyton,” said the youth, “I 
will strike thee on the face, thou foul-mouthed old rail- 
ing heretic ! ” 

“ Saint Bennet of Seyton ! ” echoed the steward ; “ a 
proper warrant is Saint Bennet’s, and for a proper nest of 
wolf-birds like the Seytons ! — I will arrest thee as a traitor 
to King James and the good Regent. — Ho ! John Auchter- 
muchty, raise aid against the King’s traitor ! ” 

So saying, he laid his hand on the youth’s collar, and 
drew his sword. John Auchtermuchty looked in, but, see- 
ing the naked weapon, ran faster out than he entered. 
Keltie, the landlord, stood by and helped neither party, 
only exclaiming, “Gentlemen! gentlemen! for the love 
of Heaven ! ” and so forth. A struggle ensued, in which 
the young man chafed at Dryfesdale’s boldness, and unable 
with the ease he expected to extricate himself from the 
old man’s determined grasp, drew his dagger, and with 
the speed of light dealt him three wounds in the breast 
and body, the "least of which was mortal. The old man 
sunk on the ground with a deep groan, and the host set up 
a piteous exclamation of surprise. 

“ Peace, ye brawling hound ! ” said the wounded stew- 
ard ; “are dagger-stabs and dying men such rarities in 
Scotland, that you should cr>' as if the house were falling ? 
Youth, I do not forgive thee, for there is naught betwixt 
us to forgive. Thou hast done what I have done to more 
than one— And I suffer what I have seen them suffer— it 
was all ordained to be thus and not otherwise. But if thou 
wouldst do me right, thou wilt send this packet safely to 
the hands of Sir William Douglas ; and see that my mem- 
ory suffer not, as if I would have loitered on mine errand 
for fear of my life.” 

The youth, whose passion had subsided the instant he 
had done the deed, listened with sympathy and attention, 
when another person, muffled in his cloak, entered the 
apartment, and exclaimed, “ Good God ! Dryfesdale, and 
expiring ! ” 

“Ay, and Dryfesdale would that he had been dead,” 
answered the \vounded man, “rather than that his ears 
had heard the words of the only Douglas that ever was 
false— but yet it is better as it is. Good my murderer, and 
the rest of you, stand back and let me speak with this un- 


368 


THE ABBOT. 


happy apostate. Kneel down by me, Master George— 
You have heard that I failed in my attempt to take away 
that Moabitish stumbling-block and her retinue — 1 gave 
them that which I thouglit would have removed the temp- 
tation out of my patli— and this, though I had other rea- 
sons to show to thy mother and others, T did chiefly pur- 
pose for love of thee.” 

“ F or the love of me, base poisoner ! ” answered Douglas, 

wouldst thou have committed so horrible, so unprovoked 
a murder, and mentioned my name with it ? ” 

“And wherefore not, George of Douglas?” answered 
Dryfesdale. “ Breath is now scarce with me, but I would 
spend my last gasp on this argument. Hast thou not, de- 
spite the honor thou owest to thy parents, the faith that is 
due to thy religion, the truth that is due to thy king, been 
so carried away by the charms of this beautiful sorceress, 
that thou wouldst have helped her to escape from her 
prison-house, and lent her thine arm again to ascend the 

throne, which she had made a place of abomination ? Nav 

stir not from me — my hand, though fast stiffening, has yet 
force enough to hold thee— What dost thou aim at ?— to 
wed this witch of Scotland ! I warrant tliee, thou mavest 
succeed her heart and hand have been oft won at a 
cheaper rate than thou, fool that thou art, would think 
thyself happy to pay. But, should a servant of thy father’s 
house have seen thee embrace the fate of the idiot Darnlev 
or of the vdlain Bothwell— the fate of the murdered fool' 
or of the living pirate— while an ounce of ratsbane would 
have saved thee ? ” 


“ Think on God, Dryfesdale,” said George Douglas, “ and 
leave the utterance of those horrors— Repent, if thou canst 
— if not, at least be silent. 


, . ' , ; Seyton, aid me to support tliis 

dying wretch, that he may compose himself to better 
thoughts, if it be possible.” 

‘‘ Seyton ! ” answered the dying man ; “ Seyton ! Is it bv 
a Seyton s hand that I fall at last ? There is something of 
retribution in that— since the house had nigh lost a sister 

nLTJ fading eyes on the youth, he 

added. He hath her very features and presence ? Stoop 

closer— I would know 

herd homicides will 

herd together there, and I have been one.” He pulled 

beyton s face, in spite of some resistance, closer to his own 
looked at him fixedly and added, “ Thou hast begun young 
-thy career will be the briefer-ay, thou wilt be met with^ 


THE ABBOT. 


369 


and that anon — a young plant never throve that was 
watered with an old man’s blood. Yet why blame I thee ? 
Strange turns of fate,” he muttered, ceasing to address 
Seyton. “ I designed what I could not do, and he has done 
what he did not perchance design. Wondrous, that our 
will should ever oppose itself to the strong and uncontrol- 
lable tide of destiny — that we should strive with the stream 
when we might drift with the current! My brain will 
serve me to question it no farther— I would Schoeflerbach 
were here — yet why ? I am on a course w^hich the vessel 
can hold without a pilot. Farewell, George of Douglas — 

I die true to thy father’s house.” He fell into convulsions 
at these words, and shortly after expired. 

Seyton and Douglas stood looking on the dying man, 
and when the scene was closed, the former was the first to 
speak. “ As I live, Douglas, I meant not this, and am sorry ; 
but he laid hands on me, and compelled me to defend my 
freedom, as I best might, with my dagger. If he were ten 
times thy friend and follower, I can but say that I am soriy-.” 

“I blame thee not, Seyton,” said Douglas, “though I la- 
ment the chance. There is an overruling destiny above 
us, though not in the sense in which it was viewed by that 
wretched man, who, beguiled by some foreign mystagogue, 
used the awful word as the ready apology for whatever he 
chose to do — we must examine the packet.” 

They withdrew into an inner room, and remained deep 
in consultation, until they \vere disturbed by the entrance 
of Keltie, who, with an embarrassed countenance, asked 
Master George Douglas’s pleasure respecting the disposal 
of the body. “Your honor knows,” he added, “that I 
make my bread by living men, not by dead corpses ; and 
old Mr. Dryfesdale, who was but a sorry customer while 
lie was alive, occupies my public room now that he is de- 
ceased, and can neither call for ale nor brandy.” 

“ Tie a stone round his neck,” said Seyton, “ and when 
the sun is down, have him to the Loch of Ore, heave him 
in, and let him alone for finding out the bottom.” 

“ Under your favor, sir,” said George Douglas, “it shall 
not be so. Keltie, thou art a true fellow to me, and thy 
having been so shall advantage thee. Send or take the 
bodv to the chapel at Scotland’s wall, or to the church of 
Ballingry, and tell what tale thou wilt of his having fallen 
in a brawl with some unruly guests of thine. Auchter- 
muchty knows naught else, nor are the times so peaceful 
as to admit close looking into such accounts.” 


24 


3/0 


THE ABBOT. 


“ Nay, let him tell the truth,” said Seyton, “ so far as 
it harms not our scheme. Say that Henry Seyton met 
with him, my good fellow ; I care not a brass bodle for 
the feud.” 

“ A feud with the Douglas was ever to be feared, how- 
ever,” said George, displeasure mingling with his natural 
deep gravity of manner. 

“ Not when the best of the name is on my side,” replied 
Seyton. 

“Alas! Henry, if thou meanest me, I am but half a 
Douglas in this emprise — half head, half heart, and half 
hand. But I will think on one who can never be forgotten, 
and be all, or more, than any of my ancestors was ever. 
Keltie, say it was Henry Seyton did the deed ; but beware, 
not a word of me ! Let Auchtermuchty carry this packet 
(which he had resealed with his own signet) to my father 
at Edinburgh ; and here is to pay for the funeral expenses, 
and thy loss of custom.” 

“ And the washing of the floor,” said the landlord, 
“ which will be an extraordinary job ; for blood, they say, 
will scarcely ever cleanse out.” 

“ But as for your plan,” said George of Douglas, address- 
ing Seyton, as if in continuation of what they had been 
before treating of, “ it has a good face ; but, under your 
favor, you are yourself too hot and too young, besides 
other reasons which are much against your playing the part 
you propose.” 

“We will consult the Father Abbot upon it,” said the 
youth. “ Do you ride to Kinross to-night ?” 

“ Ay — so I purpose,” answered Douglas ; “ the night 
will be dark, and suits a muffled man.* Keltie, I forgot, 
there should be a stone laid on that man’s grave, recording 
his name, and his only merit, which was being a faithful 
servant to the Douglas.” 

“What religion was the man of?” said Seyton; “he 
used words which make me fear I have sent Satan a sub- 
ject before his time.” 

“I can tell you little of that,” said George Douglas; 
“ he was noted for disliking both Rome and Geneva, and 

* Generally, a disguised man ; originally, one who wears the cloak or 
mantle muffled round the lower part of the face to conceal his counte- 
nance. I have on an ancient piece of iron the representation of a robber 
thus accoutred, endeavoring to make his way into a house, and opposed 
by a mastiff to whom he in vain offers food. The motto is spernit dona 
fides. It is part of a firegrate said to have belonged to Archbishop Sharp. 


THE ABBOT. 


371 


spoke of lights he had learned among the fierce sectaries 
of Lower Germany — an evil doctrine it was, if we judge 
by the fruits. God keep us from presumptuously judging 
of Heaven’s secrets ! ” 

“Amen !” said young Seyton, “and from my meeting 
any encounter this evening.” 

“It is not thy wont to pray so,” said George Douglas. 

“No! I leave that to you,” replied the youth, “when 
you are seized with scruples of engaging with your father’s 
vassals. But I would fain have this old man’s blood off 
these hands of mine ere I shed more — I will confess to 
the Abbot to-night, and I trust to have light penance for 
ridding the earth of such a miscreant. All I sorrow for is 
that he was not a score of years younger. He drew steel 
first, however ; that is one comfort.” 


CHAPTER THIRTY-FOURTH^ 

Ay, Pedro — Come you here with mask and lantern, 

Ladder of ropes and other moonshine tools — 

Why, youngster, thou mayest cheat the old duenna, 

Flatter the waiting-woman, bribe the valet ; 

But know that I her father play the Gryphon, 

Tameless and sleepless, proof to fraud or bribe, 

And guard the hidden treasure of her beauty. 

The Spanish Father. 

The tenor of our tale carries us back to the Castle of 
Lochleven, where we take up the order of events on the 
same remarkable day on which Dryfesdale had been dis- 
missed from the castle. It was past noon, the usual hour 
of dinner, yet no preparations seemed made for the 
Queen’s entertainment. Mary herself had retired into her 
own apartment, where she was closely engaged in writing. 
Her attendants were together in the presence-cliamber, 
and much disposed to speculate on the delay of the dinner ; 
for it may be recollected that their breakfast had been in- 
terrupted. “ I believe in my conscience,” said the page, 
that having found the poisoning sclieme miscarry, by hav- 
ing gone to the wrong mercliant for their deadly wares, 
they are about to try how famine will work upon us.” 

Lady Fleming was somewhat alarmed at this surmise, 
but comforted herself by observing that the chimney of the 
kitchen had reeked tiiat whole day in a manner which con' 


372 


THE ABBOT. 


tradicted the supposition. Catherine Seyton presently ex- 
claimed, “ They were bearing the dishes across the court, 
marshalled by the Lady Lochleven herself, dressed out in 
her highest and stiffest ruff, with her partlet and sleeves of 
Cyprus, and her huge old-fashioned farthingale of crimson 
velvet.” 

“ I believe on my word,” said the page, approaching the 
window also, “ it was in that very farthingale that she cap- 
tivated the heart of gentle King Jamie, which procured 
our poor Queen her precious bargain of a brother.” 

“That may hardly be. Master Roland,” answered the 
Lady Fleming, who was a great recorder of the changes of 
fashion, “ since the farthingales came first in when the 
Queen Regent went to Saint Andrews, after the battle of 
Pinkie, and were then called Ve7'tu gar dins" 

She would have proceeded farther in this important dis- 
cussion, but was interrupted by the entrance of the Lady 
of Lochleven, who preceded the servants bearing the dish- 
es, and formally discharged the duty of tasting each of 
them. Lady Fleming regretted, in courtly phrase, that the 
Lady of Lochleven should have undertaken so troublesome 
an office. 

“After the strange incident of this day, madam,” said 
the Lady, “ it is necessary for my honor and that of my 
son, that I partake whatever is offered to my involuntary 
guest. Please to inform the Lady Mary that I attend her 
commands.” 

“ Her Majesty,” replied Lady Fleming, with due empha- 
sis on the word, “ shall be informed that the Lady of Loch- 
leven waits.” 

Mary appeared instantly, and addressed her hostess with 
courtesy, which even approached to something more cor- 
dial. “This is nobly done. Lady Lochleven,” she said;- 
“for though we ourselves apprehend no danger under your 
roof, our ladies have been much alarmed by this morning s 
chance, and our meal will be the more cheerful for your 
presence and assurance. Please you to sit down.” 

The Lady Lochleven obeyed the Queen’s commands, and 
Roland performed the office of carver and attendant as 
usual. But, notwithstanding what the Queen had said, the 
meal was silent and unsocial ; and every effort which Mary 
made to excite some conversation, died away under the 
solemn^ and chill replies of the Lady of Lochleven. At 
length it became plain that the Queen, who had considered 
these advances as a condescension on her part, and who 


THE ABBOT 


373 

justly on her powers of pleasing, became 
oifended at the repulsive conduct of her hostess. After 
poking with a significant glance at Lady Fleming and 
Catherine, she slightly shrugged her shoulders, and re- 
mained silent. A pause ensued, at the end of which the 
Lady Douglas spoke : I perceive, madam, 1 am a check 
on the mirth of this fair company. I pray you to excuse 
me — I am a widow — alone here in a most perilous charge 

deserted by my grandson — betraved by my servant — I 
am little worthy of the grace you do me in offering me a 
seat at your table, where I am aware that wit and pastime 
are usually expected from the guests.” 

“ If the Lady of Lochleven is serious,” said the Queen, 
“we wonder by what simplicity she expects our present 
rneals to be seasoned with mirth. If she is a widow, she 
lives honored and uncontrolled at the head of her late hus- 
band’s household. But I know at least of one widowed 
woman in the world, before whom the words desertion and 
betrayal ought never to be mentioned, since no one has 
been made so bitterly acquainted with their import.” 

“ I meant not, madam, to remind you of your misfort- 
unes by the mention of mine,” answered the Lady Loch- 
leven, and there was again a deep silence. 

Mary at length addressed Lady Fleming : “We can com- 
mit no deadly sins here, ma bon7te, where we are so well 
warded and looked to ; but if we could, this Carthusian 
silence might be useful as a kind of penance. If thou hast 
adjusted my wimple amiss, my Fleming, or if Catherine 
hath made a wry stitch in her broidery, when she was 
thinking of something else than her work, or if Roland 
Graeme hath missed a wild duck on the wing, and broke a 
quarrel-pane* of glass in the turret-window, as chanced to 
him a week since, now is the time to think on your sins 
and to repent of them.” 

“Madam, I speak with all reverence,” said the Lady 
Lochleven ; “but I am old, and claim the privilege of age. 
Methinks your followers might find fitter subjects for re- 
pentance than the trifles you mention, and so mention — 
once more I crave your pardon — as if you jested with sin 
and repentance both.” 

“You have been our taster. Lady Lochleven,” said the 
Queen ; “ I perceive you would eke out your duty with 
that of our Father Confessor — and since you choose that 

* Diamond-shaped ; literally, formed like the head of a quarrel^ or 
arrow for the crcss-bcw. 


374 


THE ABBOT. 


our conversation should be serious, may I ask you why 
the Regent’s promise— since your son so styles himself — 
has not been kept to me in that respect ? From time to 
time this promise has been renewed, and as constantly 
broken. Methinks those who pretend themselves to so 
much gravity and sanctity should not debar from others 
the religious succors which their consciences require.” 

“ Madam, the Earl of Murray was indeed weak enough,” 
said the Lady Lochleven, to give so far way to your un- 
happy prejudices, and a religioner of the Pope presented 
himself on his part at our town of Kinross. But the 
Douglas is Lord of his own castle, and will not permit his 
threshold to be darkened, no not for a single moment, by 
an emissary belonging to the Bishop of Rome.” 

“ Methinks it were w^ell, then,” said Mary, “ that my 
Lord Regent would send me where there is less scruple 
and more charity.” 

“In this, madam,” answered the Lady Lochleven, “you 
mistake the nature both of charity and of religion. Charity 
giveth to those who are in delirium the medicaments which 
may avail their health, but refuses those enticing cates and 
liquors w'hich please the palate but augment the disease.” 

“This your charity. Lady Lochleven, is pure cruelty, 
under the hypocritical disguise of friendly care. I am op- 
pressed amongst you as if you meant the destruction both 
of my body and soul ; but Heaven will not endure such 
iniquity forever, and they who are the most active agents 
in it may speedily expect their reward.” 

At this moment Randal entered the apartment, with a 
look so much perturbed, that the Lady Fleming uttered a 
faint scream, the Queen was obviously startled, and the 
Lady of Lochleven, though too bold and proud to evince 
any marked signs of alarm, asked hastily what was the 
matter ? 

“ Dryfesdale has been slain, madam,” was the reply ; 
“ murdered as soon as he gained the dry land by young 
Master Henry Seyton.” 

It was now Catherine’s turn to start and grow pale — 
“ Has the murderer of the Douglas’s vassal escaped ? ” was 
the Lady’s hasty question. 

“ There was none to challenge him but old Keltie, and 
the carrier Auchtermuchty,” replied Randal; “unlikely 
men to stay one of the frackest* youths in Scotland of his 


♦ Boldest — most forward. 


THE ABBOT. 


375 


years, and who was sure to have friends and partakers at 
no great distance." 

“Was the deed completed ?" said the Lady. 

“ Done, and done thoroughly," said Randal ; “a Seyton 
seldom strikes twice — But the body was not despoiled, and 
your honor’s packet goes forward to Edinburgh by Auch- 
termuchty, who leaves Keltie-Bridge early to-morrow — ■ 
marry, he has drunk two bottles of aquavitae to put the 
fright out of his head, and now sleeps them off beside his 
cart-avers." * 

There was a pause when this fatal tale was told. The 
Queen and Lady Douglas looked on each other, as if each 
thought how she could best turn the incident to her own 
advantage in the controversy which was continually kept 
alive betwixt them — Catherine Seyton kept her kerchief 
at her eyes and wept. 

“You see, madam, the bloody maxims and practice of 
the deluded Papists," said Lady Lochleven. 

“Nay, madam," replied the Queen, “say rather you see 
the deserved judgment of Heaven upon a Calvinistical 
poisoner." 

“ Dryfesdale was not of the Church of Geneva, or of 
Scotland," said the Lady of Lochleven, hastily. 

“ He was a heretic, however," replied Mary; “there is 
but one true and unerring guide ; the others lead alike 
into error." 

“Well, madam, I trust it will reconcile you to your re- 
treat that this deed shows the temper of those who might 
wish you at liberty. Bloodthirsty tyrants and cruel men- 
quellers are they all, from the clan- Ranald and Clan-Tosach 
in the north, to the Ferniherst and Buccleuch in the 
.south — the murdering Seytons in the east, and " 

“ Methinks, madam, you forget that I am a Seyton?” 
said Catherine, withdrawing her kerchief from her face, 
which was now colored with indignation. 

“ If I had forgot it, fair mistress, your forward bearing 
would have reminded me," said Lady Lochleven. 

“ If my brother has slain the villain that would have 
poisoned his Sovereign, and his sister," said Catherine, “ I 
am only so far sorry that he should have spared the 
hangman his proper task. For aught farther, had it been 
the best Douglas in the land, he would have been hon- 
ored in falling by the Seyton’s sword.” 


* Cart-horses. 


376 


THE ABBOT. 


Farewell, gav mistress,” said the Lady of Lochleven, 
rising to withdraw ; “ it is such maidens as you, who make 
giddy-fashioned revellers and deadly brawlers. Boys must 
needs rise, forsooth, in the grace of some sprightly damsel, 
who thinks to dance through life as through a French 
galliard.” She then made her reverence to the Queen, 
and added, “Do you also, madam, fare-you-well, till cur- 
few time, when I will make, perchance, more bold than 
welcome in attending upon your supper board. Come 
with me, Randal, and tell me more of this cruel fact.” 

" Tis an extraordinary chance,” said the Queen, when 
she had departed; “and, villain as he was, 1 would this 
man had been spared time for repentance. We will cause 
something to be done for his soul, if we ever attain our 
liberty, and the Church will permit such grace to a heretic. 
— But, tell me, Catherine, ma mignonne — this brother**^ of 
thine, who is so frack.^ as the fellow called him, bears he 
the same wonderful likeness to thee as formerly?” 

“If your Grace means in temper, you know whether I 
am so frack 2 iS the serving-man spoke him.” 

“Nay, thou art prompt enough in all reasonable con- 
science,” replied the Queen ; “ but thou art my own dar- 
ling notwithstanding— ^But I meant, is this thy twin-brother 
as like thee in form and features as formerly ? I remember 
thy dear mother alleged it as a reason for destining thee 
to the veil, that, were ye both to go at large, thou wouldst 
surely get the credit of some of thy brother’s mad pranks.” 

“I believe, madam,” said Catherine, “there are some 
unusually simple people even yet, who can hardly distin- 
guish betwixt us, especially when, for diversion’s sake, my 
brother hath taken a female dress,” — and as she spoke, she 
gave a quick glance at Roland Graeme, to whom this con- 
versation conveyed a ray of light, welcome as ever streamed 
into the dungeon of a captive through the door which 
opened to give him freedom. 

“ He must be a handsome cavalier, this brother of thine, 
if he be so like you,” replied Mary. “ He was in France, 
I think, for these late years, so that I saw him not at 
Holyrood.” 

“ His looks, madam, have never been much found fault 
with,” answered Catherine Seyton ; “but I would he had 
less of that angry and heady spirit, which evil times have 
encouraged amongst our young nobles. God knows, I 
grudge not his life in your Grace’s quarrel ; and love him 
for the willingness with which he labors for your rescue. 


THE ABBOT. 


377 


But wherefore should he brawl with an old ruffianly 
serving-man, and stain at once his name with such a 
broil, and his hands with the blood of an old and ignoble 
wretch ? ” 

^‘Nay, be patient, Catherine; I will not have thee tra- 
duce my gallant young knight. With Henry for my knight, 
and Roland Graeme for my trusty squire, methinks I am 
like a princess of romance, who may shortly set at defiance 
the dungeons and the weapons of all wicked sorcerers. — 
But my head aches with the agitation of the day. Take 
me La Mer des HistoireSy and resume where \ve left off on 
Wednesday. — Our Lady help thy head, girl, or rather may 
she help thy heart — I asked thee for the Sea of Histories, 
and thou hast brought La Chronique d’ Amour.”* 

Once embarked upon the sea of Histories, the Queen 
continued her labors with her needle, while Lady Fleming 
and Catherine read to her alternately for two hours. 

As to Roland Graeme, it is probable that he continued 
in secret intent upon the Chronicle of Love, notwithstand- 
ing the censure which the Queen seemed to pass upon 
that branch of study. He now remembered a thousand 
circumstances of voice and manner, which, had his own 
prepossession been less, must surely have discriminated 
the brother from the sister ; and he felt ashamed that, 
having as it were by heart every particular of Catherine’s 
gestures, words, and manners, he should have thought her, 
notwithstanding her spirits and levity, capable of assuming 
the bold step, loud tones, and forward assurance which 
accorded well enough with her brother’s hasty and mas- 
culine character. He endeavored repeatedly to catch a 
glance of Catherine’s eye, that he might judge how she 
was disposed to look upon him since he had made the dis- 
covery, but he was unsuccessful ; for Catherine, when she 
was not reading herself, seemed to take so much interest 
in the exploits of the Teutonic knights against the heathens 
of Esthonia and Livonia, that he could not surprise her 
eye even for a second. But when, closing the book, the 
Queen commanded their attendance in the garden, Mary, 
perhaps of set purpose (for Roland’s anxiety could not 
escape so practised an observer), afforded him a favorable 

* [La Mer des Histoires was a large qhronicle or universal history, con- 
tinued to the death of Louis XI. of France, 1483. In the list of books 
belonging to Queen Mary, delivered to her sou, the young King, by the 
Earl of Morton, 1578, we find “ four volumes of La Mer des Histoires, 
covered with quhite parchment.”] 


378 


THE ABBOT 


opportunity of accosting his mistress. The Queen com- 
manded them to a little distance, while she engaged Lady 
Fleming in a particular and private conversation ; the 
subject whereof we learn, from another authority, to have 
been the comparative excellence of the high standing ruff 
and the falling band. Roland must have been duller, and 
more sheepish than ever was youthful lover, if he had not 
endeavored to avail himself of this opportunity. 

“ I have been longing this whole evening to ask of you, 
fair Catherine,” said the page, “ how foolish and unappre- 
hensive you must have thought me, in being capable to 
mistake betwixt your brother and you ? ” 

“ The circumstance does indeed little honor to my rus- 
tic manners,” said Catherine, “since those of a wild young 
man were so readily mistaken for mine. But I shall grow 
wiser in time ; and with that view I am determined not to 
think of your follies, but to correct my own.” 

“ It will be the lighter subject of meditation of the two,” 
said Roland. 

“ I know not that,” said Catherine, very gravely ; “ I fear 
we have been both unpardonably foolish.” 

“ I have been mad,” said Roland, “ unpardonably mad. 
But you, lovely Catherine ” 

“ I,’ said Catherine, in the same tone of unusual gravity, 

“ have too long suffered you to use such expressions toward 
me — I fear I can permit it no longer, and I blame myself 
for the pain it may give you.” 

“And what can have happened so suddenly to change 
our relation to each other, or alter, with such sudden cru- 
elty, your whole deportment to me ?” 

“I can hardly tell,” replied Catherine, “unless it is that 
the events of the day have impressed on my mind the ne- 
cessity of our observing more distance to each other. A 
chance similar to that which betrayed to you the existence 
of my brother, may make known to Henry the terms you 
have used to me ; and, alas ! his whole conduct, as well as 
his deed this day, makes me too justly apprehensiv’^e of the 
consequences.” 

“ Fear nothing for that, fair Catherine,” answered the 
page ; “I am well able to protect myself against risks of ' 
that nature.” 

“That is to say,” replied she, “that you would fight 
with my twin-brother to show your regard for his sister ? 

I have heard the Queen say, in her sad hours, that men 
are, in love or in hate, the most selfish animals of creation ; 


THE ABBOT. 


379 


and your carelessness in this matter looks very like it. 
But be not so much abashed — you are no worse than others.” 

“You do me injustice, Catherine,” replied the page ; “I 
thought but of being threatened with a sword, and did not 
remember in whose hand your fancy had placed it. If 
your brother stood before me, with his drawn weapon in his 
hand, so like as he is to you in word, person, and favor, he 
might shed my life’s blood ere I could find in my heart to 
resist him to his injury.” 

“ Alas ! ” said she, “ it is not my brother alone. But 
you remember only the singular circumstances in which 
we have met in equality, and I may say in intimacy. You 
think not, that whenever I re-enter my father’s house, there 
is a gulf between us you may not pass, but with peril of 
your life. — Your only known relative is of wild and singu- 
lar habits, of a hostile and broken clan * — the rest of your 
lineage unknown — forgive me that I speak what is the un- 
deniable truth.” 

“Love, my beautiful Catherine, despises genealogies,” 
answered Roland Graeme. 

“ Love may, but so will not the Lord Seyton,” rejoined 
the damsel. 

“ The Queen, thy mistress and mine, she will intercede. 
Oh ! drive me not from you at the moment I thought my- 
self most happy ! — and if I shall aid her deliverance said 
not yourself that you and she would become my debtors ? ” 

“ All Scotland will become your debtors,” said Catherine ; 
“but for the active effects you might hope from our grat- 
itude, you must remember I am wholly subjected to my 
father ; and the poor Queen is, for a long time, more likely 
to be dependent on the pleasure of the nobles of her party, 
than possessed of po-wer to control them.” 

“ Be it so,” replied Roland ; “ my deeds shall control 
prejudice itself — it is a bustling world, and I will have my 
share. The Knight of Avenel, high as he now stands, rose 
from as obscure an origin as mine.” 

“Ay ! ” said Catherine, “there spoke the doughty knight 
of romance, that will cut his way to the imprisoned prin- 
cess, through fiends and fiery dragons ! ” 

“ But if I can set the princess at large, and procure her 
the freedom of her own choice,” said the page, “where, 
dearest Catherine, will that choice alight ? ” 

* A broken clan was one who had no chief able to find security for their 
good behavior — a clan of outlaws ; and the Graemes of the Debatable 
Land were in that condition. 


380 


THE ABBOT. 


“ Release the princess from duresse, and she will tell 
you, said the damsel ; and breaking’ off the conversation 
abruptly, she joined the Queen so suddenly, that Mary ex- 
claimed, half aloud — 

'‘No more tidings of evil import — no dissension, I trust, 
in my limited household ? ’’—Then looking on Catherine’s 
blushing cheek, and Roland’s expanded brow and glancino- 
eye— “No— no,” she said, “I see all is well — petite 
mignonne, go to my apartment and fetch me down— let me 
see — ay, fetch my pomander box.” 

And having thus disposed of her attendant in the man- 
ner best qualified to hide her confusion, the Queen added 
speaking apart to Roland, " I should at least have two 
giateful subjects of Catherine and you ; for what sovereign 
but Mary would aid true love so willingly ?— Ay, you lay 
your hand on your sword— your petite ftamberge d rien there 
—Well, short time will show if all the good be true that is 
protested to us— I hear them toll curfew from Kinross. 
To our chamber — this old dame has promised to be with 
us again at our evening meal. Were it not for the hope 
ot speedy deliverance, her presence would drive me dis- 
tracted. But I will be patient.” 

“I profess,” said Catherine, who just then entered, “I 
would I could be Henry, with all a man’s privileges for 
one monient— I long to throw my plate at that confect of 
pride and formality, and ill-nature.” 

^ Fleming reprimanded her young companion 

for this explosion of impatience ; the Queen laughed, and 
they went to the presence-chamber, where almost im- 
mediately entered supper, and the Lady of the castle. The 
Queen, strong in her prudent resolutions, endured her 
presence with great fortitude and equanimity, until her 
patience was disturbed by a new form, which had hitherto 
made no part of the ceremonial of the castle. When the 
other attendant had retired, Randal entered, bearing the 
fastened upon a chain, and, annoiinc- 
th° file watch was set, and the gates locked, delivered 
^ reverence to the Lady of Lochleven. 
look’ofRticf’ exchanged with each other a 

saM dn.M vexation; and Mary 

sa d aloud. We cannot regret the smallness of our court, 

its offires^^®r°“ discharge in person so many of 

s offices. In addition to her charges of principal steward 
O our household, and grand almoner, sh^lrto M-ht 
done duty as contain of our guard” 


THE ABBOT. 


38X 

“And will continue to do so in future, madam,” an- 
swered the Lady Lochleven, with much gravity ; “ the 
history of Scotland may teach me how ill the duty Is per- 
formed, which is done by an accredited deputy — \Ve have 
heard, madam, of favorites of later date, and as little 
merit, as Oliver Sinclair.”^ 

“Oh, madam,” replied the Queen, “my father had his 
female as well as his male favorites— there were the Ladies 
Sandilands and 01ifaunt,f and some others, methinks ; but 
their names cannot survive in the memory of so errave a 
person as you.” ^ 

The Lady Lochleven looked as if she could have slain 
the Queen on the spot, but commanded her temper, and 
retired from the apartment, bearing in her hand the pon- 
derous bunch of keys. 

“ Now God be praised for that woman’s youthful 
frailty ! ” said the Queen. “ Had she not that weak point 
in her character, I might waste my words on her in vain. 
—But that stain is the very reverse of what is said of the 
witch’s mark— I can make her feel there, though she is 

otherwise insensible all over. — But how say you, girls 

here is a new difficulty — How are these keys to be come 
by ? — there is no deceiving or bribing this dragon, I trow.” 

“May I crave to know,” said Roland, “whether, if your 
Grace were beyond the walls of the castle, you could “find 
means of conveyance to the firm land, and protection 
wlien you are there ? ” 

“Trust us for that, Roland,” said the Queen; “for to 
that point our scheme is indifferent well Imd.” 

“Then if your Grace will permit me to speak my mind, 

I think I could be of some use in this matter.” 

“As how, my good youth? — speak on,” said the Queen, 

“ and fearlessly.” 

“ My patron the Knight of Avenel used to compel the 
youth educated in his household to learn the use of axe 
and hammer, and working in wood and iron — he used to 
speak of old northern champions, who forged their own 
weapons, and of the Highland Captain, Donald nan Ord, 
or Donald of the Hammer, whom he himself knew, and 
who used to work at the anvil with a sledgehammer in 

* A favorite, and said to be an unworthy one, of James V. 
f The names of these ladies, and a third frail favorite of James (Lady 
Weir) are preserved in an epigram too gaillard for quotation. 

[They will be found in Allan Ramsay’s Evergreen ; the lines are written 
however by Ramsay himself.] 


382 


THE ABBOT. 


each hand. Some said he praised this art, because he was 
himself of churl’s blood. However, I gained some practice 
in it, as the Lady Catherine Seyton partly knows ; for 
since we were here I wrought her a silver brooch.” 

“ Ay,” replied Catherine, “ but you should tell her Grace 
that your workmanship was so indifferent that it broke to 
pieces next day, and I flung it away.” 

“ Believe her not, Roland,” said the Queen ; “ she wept 
when it was broken, and put the fragments into her bosom. 
But for your scheme — could your skill avail to forge a sec- 
ond set of keys ? ” 

“ No, madam, because I know not the wards. “ But I am 
convinced I could make a set so like that hateful bunch 
which the Lady bore off even now, that could they be ex- 
changed against them by any means, she would never 
dream she was possessed of the wrong.” 

“ And the good dame, thank Heaven, is somewhat blind,” 
said the Queen ; “ but then for a forge, my boy, and the 
means of laboring unobserved ?” 

“ The armorer’s forge, at which I used sometimes to 
work with him, is the round vault at the bottom of the 
turret — he was dismissed with the warder for being sup- 
posed too much attached to George Douglas. The people 
are accustomed to see me work there, and I warrant I shall 
find some excuse that will pass current with them for put- 
ting bellows and anvil to work.” 

“ The scheme has a promising face,” said the Queen ; 
“ about it, my lad, with all speed, and beware the nature 
of your Avork is not discovered.” 

“ Nay, I will take the liberty to draw the bolt against 
chance visitors, so that I will have time to put away what 
I am working upon before I undo the door.” 

“Will not that of itself attract suspicion, in a place 
where it is so current already ?” said Catherine. 

“ Not a whit,” replied Roland ; “ Gregory the armorer, 
and every good hammerman, locks himself in when he is 
about some masterpiece of craft. Besides, somethinj? must 
be risked.” 

“ Part we then to-night,” said the Queen, “and God bless 
you, my children ! — If Mary’s head ever rises above water, 
you shall all rise along with her.” 


THE ABBOT. 


383 


CHAPTER THIRTY-FIFTH. 

It is a time of danger, not of revel, 

When churchmen turn to masquers. 

Spanish Father. 

The enterprise of Roland Graeme appeared to prosper. 
A trinket or two, of wdiich the work did not surpass the 
substance (for the materials were silver, supplied by the 
Queen), were judiciously presented to those most likely to 
be inquisitive into the labors of the forge and anvil, which 
they thus were induced to reckon profitable to others and 
harmless in itself. Openly, the page was seen working 
about such trifles. In private, he forged a number of keys 
resembling so nearly in weight and in form those which 
were presented every evening to the Lady Lochleven, 
that, on a slight inspection, it would have been difficult to 
perceive the difference. He brought them to the dark 
rusty color by the use of salt and water ; and, in the 
triumph of his art, presented them at length to Queen 
Mary in her presence-chamber, about an hour before the 
tolling of the curfew. She looked at him with pleasure, 
but at the same time with doubt. — “ I allow,” she said, 
“ that the Lady Lochleven’s eyes, which are not of the 
clearest, may be well deceived, could we pass those keys 
on her in place of the real implements of her tyranny. 
But how is this to be done, and which of my little court 
dare attempt this /our de jongleur with any chance of suc- 
cess ? Could we but engage her in some earnest matter of 
argument — but those which I hold with her, always have 
been of a kind which make her grasp her keys the faster, 
as if she said to herself — Here I hold what sets me above 
your taunts and reproaches — And even for her liberty, 
Mary Stewart could not stoop to speak the proud heretic 
fair. — What shall we do ? Shall Lady Fleming try her 
eloquence in describing the last new head-tire from Paris ? 
— alas ! the good dame has not changed the fashion of her 
head-gear since Pinkie-field, for aught that I know. Shall 
my ?nignonne Catherine sing to her one of those touching 
airs, which draw the very souls out of me and Roland 
Graeme ? — Alas ! Dame Margaret Douglas would rather 
hear a Huguenot psalm of Clement Marot, sung to the 
tune of Reveillez vous^ belle endormie . — Cousins and liege 


3^4 


THE ABBOT. 


counsellors, what is to be done, for our wits are really 
astray in this matter ? — Must our man-at-arms and the 
champion of our body, Roland Graeme, manfully assault 
the old lady, and take the keys from her par voie dufait ? ” 

“Nay! with your Grace’s permission,” said Roland, “I 
do not doubt being able to manage the matter with rnore 
discretion ; for though in your Grace’s service I do not 
fear ” 

“A host of old women,” interrupted Catherine, “each 
armed with rock and spindle, yet he has no fancy for pikes 
and partisans, which might rise at the cry of Help ' a Doug- 
las, a Douglas / ” j r s 


“They that do not fear fair ladies’ tongues,” continued 
the page “ need dread nothing else. But, gracious liege, 
l am well-nigh satisfied that I could pass the exchange of 
these keys on the Lady Lochleven ; but I dread the sentinel 
vvho IS now planted nightly in the garden, which, by neces- 
sity, we must traverse.” 

“ Our last advices from our friends on the shore have 
promised us assistance in that matter,” replied the Queen. 

And IS your Grace well assured of the fidelitv and 
watchfulness of those without 

“ For their fidelity I will answer with my life, and for 
their vigilance I will answer with my life— I will give thee 
instant proof, my faithful Roland, that thevare ingenuous 
and trustworthy as thyself. Come hither— 'Nay, Catherine 
attend us; we carry not so deft a page into our private 
chamber alone. Make fast the door of the parlor, Flem- 
^ >;ou hear the least step— or stay, go 
thou to the door, Catherine ” (in a whisper, “ thv ears and 

seff -fLT Good Fleming, attend us thy- 

will reverend presence 

^ watch on Roland as thine can— so be not 
jealous, mignonne ). 

Ae Lady Fleming 

m.o the Queen s bedroom, a small apartment enlio-htened 
by a projecting window. cun,^ntenea 

om vvindow, Roland,” she said ; “see vou 

amongst the several lights which begin to kindle and^ to 

fill'e'of “he evening %om th^ 
"f-p Kinross seest thou, I say, one solitarv soark 

of tl^l Door '''' distance than the torch 

is more deal? '"y that light 

moie deal to Maiy Stewart than every star that twinkles 


THE ABBOT, 


38s 

in the blue vault of heaven. By that signal I know that more 
than one true heart is plotting my deliverance ; and without 
that consciousness, and the hope of freedom it gives me, I 
had long since stooped to my fate, and died of a broken heart. 
Plan after plan has been formed and abandoned, but still 
the light glimmers ; and while it glimmers my hope lives. 
Oh ! how many evenings have I sat musing in despair over 
our ruined schemes, and scarce hoping that I should 
again see that blessed signal ; when it has suddenly kin- 
dled, and, like the lights of St. Elmo in a tempest, brought 
hope and consolation where there was only deiection and 
despair.” 

“ If I mistake not,” answered Roland, “ the candle shines 
from the house of Blinkhoolie, the mail-gardener.” 

“ Thou hast a good eye,” said the Queen ; “ it is there 
where my trusty lieges— God and the saints pour blessings 
on them— hold consultation for my deliverance. The voice 
of a wretched captive would die on these blue waters long 
ere it could mingle in their councils ; and yet I can hold 
communication — I will confide the whole to thee — I am 
about to ask those faithful friends if the moment for the 
great attempt is nigh. Place the lamp in the window, 
Fleming.” 

She obeyed, and immediately withdrew it. No sooner 
• had she done so than the light in the cottage of the gar- 
dener disappeared. 

“ Now count,” said Queen Mary, “for my heart beats so 
thick that I cannot count myself.” 

The Lady Fleming began deliberately to count one, two, 
three, and when she had arrived at ten, the light on the 
shore showed its pale twinkle. 

“ Now, our Lady be praised ! ” said the Queen ; “it was 
but two nights since, that the absence of the light re- 
mained, while I could tell thirty. The hour of deliverance 
approaches. May God bless those who labor in it with such 
truth to me ! — alas ! with such hazard to themselves — and 
bless you, too, my children ! — Come, we must to the audi- 
ence-chamber again. Our absence might excite suspicion, 
should they serve supper.” 

They returned to the presence-chamber, and the evening 
concluded as usual. 

The next morning, at dinner-time, an unusual incident 
occurred. While Lady Douglas of Lochleven performed 
her daily duty of assistant and taster at the Queen’s table, 
she was told a man-at-anns had arrived, recommended by 

25 


386 


THE ABBOT. 


her son, but without any letter or other token than what 
he brought by word of mouth. 

“ Hath he given you that token ? ” demanded the 
Lady. 

“ He reserved it, as I think, for your Ladyship’s ear,” 
replied Randal. 

“ He doth well,” said the Lady ; “ tell him to wait in the 
hall — But no — with your permission, madam ” (to the 
Queen), “ let him attend me here.” 

“ Since your are pleased to receive your domestics in my 
presence,” said the Queen, “ I cannot choose ” 

“ My infirmities must plead my excuse, madam,” replied 
the Lady ; “ the life I must lead here ill suits with the years 
which have passed over my head, and compels me to waive 
ceremonial.” 

“ Oh, my good Lady,” replied the Queen, “ I would there 
were naught in this your castle more strongly compulsive 
than the cobweb chains of ceremony ; but bolts and bars 
are harder matters to contend with.” 

As she spoke, the person announced by Randal entered 
the room, and Roland Graeme at once recognized in him 
the Abbot Ambrosius. 

“ What is your name, good fellow ? ” said the Lady. 

“ Edward Glendinning,” answered the Abbot, with a suit- 
able reverence. 

“ Art thou of the blood of the Knight of Avenel ? ” said 
the Lady of Lochleven. 

“Ay, madam, and that nearly,” replied the pretended 
soldier. 

“ It is likely enough,” said the Lady, “for the Knight is 
the son of his own good works, and has risen from obscure 
lineage to his present high rank in the Estate — But he 
is of sure truth and approved worth, and his kinsman 
is welcome to us. You hold, unquestionably, the true 
faith ? ” 

“ Do not doubt of it, madam,” said the disguised church- 
man. 

“ Hast thou a token to me from Sir William Douglas ?” 
said the Lady. 

“ I have, madam,” replied he ; “ but it must be said in 
private.” 

“Thou art right,” said the Lady, moving toward the re- 
cess of a window ; “ say in what does it consist ?” 

“In the words of an old bard,” replied the Abbot. 

“ Repeat them,” answered the Lady ; and lie uttered, in 


THE ABBOT. 


387 

a low tone, the lines from an old poem, called The How- 
let — 

“ O Douglas ! Douglas ! 

Tender and true.” 

'‘Trusty Sir John Holland,” * said the Lady Douglas, 
apostrophizing the poet, “ a kinder heart never inspired a 
rhyme, and the Douglas’s honor was ever on thy heart- 
string! We receive you among our followers, Glendinning 
— But, Randal, see that he keep the outer ward, only, till 
we shall hear more touching him from our son. — Thou 
fearest not the night-air, Glendinning?” 

“ In the cause of the Lady before whom I stand, I fear 
nothing, madam,” answered the disguised Abbot. 

“Our garrison, then, is stronger by one trustworthy 
soldier,” said the matron — “ Go to the buttery, and let 
them make much of thee.” 

When the Lady Lochleven had retired, the Queen said 
to Roland Graeme, who was now almost constantly in her 
company, “ I spy comfort in that stranger’s countenance ; 
I know not why it should be so, but I am well persuaded 
he is a friend.” 

“ Your Grace’s penetration does not deceive you,” an- 
swered the page ; and he informed her that the Abbot of 
Saint Mary’s himself played the part of the newly-arrived 
soldier. 

The Queen crossed herself and looked upward. “ Un- 
worthy sinner that I am,” she said, “ that for my sake a 
man so holy, and so high in spiritual office, should wear 
the garb of a base sworder, and run the risk of dying the 
death of a traitor.” 

“ Heaven will protect its own servant, madam,” said 
Catherine Seyton ; “ his aid would bring a blessing on our 
undertaking, were it not already blest for its own sake.” 

“What I admire in my spiritual father,” said Roland, 
“was the steady front with which he looked on me, with- 
out giving the least sign of former acquaintance. I did 
not think the like was possible, since I have ceased to be- 
lieve that Henry was the same person with Catherine.” 

“ But marked you not how astuciously the good father,” 

* Sir John [Richard] Holland’s poem of The Hovvlet is known to col- 
lectors by the beautiful edition presented to the Bannatyne Club by Mr. 
David Laing. [The preface contains remarks by Sir Walter Scott, who 
was president of the Club. The poem was composed about the middle of 
the fifteenth century, and has generally been supposed to be a satire on 
James II. of Scotland.] 


388 


THE ABBOT. 


said t1ie Queen, “eluded the questions of the woman 
Loci)leven, telling her the very truth, which yet she re- 
ceived not as such ? ” 

Roland thought in his heart, that when the truth was 
spoken for the purpose of deceiving, it was little better 
than a lie in disguise. But it was no time to agitate such 
questions of conscience. 

“And now for the signal from the shore,” exclaimed 
Catherine ; “ my bosom tells me we shall see this night 
two lights instead of one gleam from that garden of Eden. 
And then, Roland, do you play your part manfully, and 
we will dance on the greensward like midnight fairies!” 

Catherine’s conjecture misgave not, nor deceived her. 
In the evening two beams twinkled from the cottage, in- 
stead of one ; and the page heard, with beating heart, that 
the new retainer was ordered to stand sentinel on the out- 
side of the castle. When he intimated this news to the 
Queen, she held out her hand to him — he knelt, and when 
he raised it to his lips in ail dutiful homage, he found it 
was damp and cold as marble. “ For God’s sake, madam, 
droop not now, — sink not now ! ” 

“Call upon Our Lady, my liege,” said the Lady Flem- 
ing — “call upon your tutelar saint.” 

“Call the spirits of the hundred kings you have de- 
scended from,” exclaimed the page ; “ in this hour of need, 
the resolution of a monarch were worth the aid of a hun- 
dred saints.” 

“Oh ! Roland Graeme,” said Mary, in a tone of deep de- 
spondency, “be true to me — many have been false to me. 
Alas! I have not always been true to myself. My mind 
misgives me that I shall die in bondage, and that this bold 
attempt will cost all our lives. It was foretold me by a 
soothsayer in France, that I should die in prison, and by a 
violent death, and here comes the hour — Oh, would to God 
it found me prepared !” 

“Madam,” said Catherine Seyton, “remember you are a 
Queen. Better we all died in bravely attempting to gain 
our freedom, than remained here to be poisoned, as men 
rid them of the noxious vermin that haunt old houses.” 

“You are right, Catherine,” said the Queen; “and 
Mary will bear lier like herself. But alas ! your young 
and buoyant spirit can ill spell the causes which have 
broken mine. Forgive me, my children, and farewell for 
a while. I will prepare both mind and body for this awful 
venture.” 


THE ABBOT. 


389 

They separated, till again called together by the tolline; 
of the curfevv. The Queen appeared grave, but firm'and re- 
solved ; the Lady Fleming, with the art of an experienced 
courtier, knew perfectly how to disguise her inward tre- 
mors ; Catherine’s eye was fired as if with the boldness of 
the project, and the half smile which dwelt upon her 
beautiful mouth seemed to contemn all the risk and all 
the consequences of discovery ; Roland, who felt how 
much success depended on his own address and boldness 
summoned together his whole presence of mind, and if he 
wund his spirits flag for a moment, cast his eye upon 
Catherine, whom he thought he had never ‘seen look so 
beautiful. “I may be foiled,” he thought, “but with this 
reward in prospect, they must bring the devil to aid them 
ere they cross me. Thus resolved, he stood like a grey- 
hound in the slips, with hand, heart and eye intent upon 
making and seizing opportunity for the execution of their 
project. 

The keys had, with the wonted ceremonial, been pre- 
sented to the Lady Lochleven. She stood with her back 
to the casement, which, like that of the Queen’s apartment, 
commanded a view of Kinross, with the church, which 
stands at some distance from the town, and nearer to the 
lake, then connected with the town by straggling cottages. 
With her back to this casement, then, and her face to the 
table, on which the keys lay for an instant while she tasted 
the various dishes which were placed there, stood the 
Lady of Lochleven, more provokingly intent than usual— 
so at least it seemed to her prisoners— upon the huge and 
heavy bunch of iron, the implements of their restraint. 
Just when, having finished her ceremony as taster of the 
Queen’s table, she was about to take up the keys, the 
page, who stood beside her and had handed her the dishes 
in succession, looked sideways to the churchyard, and ex- 
claimed he saw corpse-candles in the churchyard. The 
Lady of Lochleven was not without a touch^ though a 
slight one, of the superstitions of the time ; the fate of her 
sons made her alive to omens, and a corpse-light, as it was 
called, in the family burial-place boded death. She turned 
her head toward the casement, saw a distant glimmering, 
forgot her charge for one second, and in that second were 
lost the whole fruits of her former vigilance. The page 
held the forged keys under his cloak, and with great dex- 
terity exchanged them for the real ones. His utmost ad- 
dress could not prevent a slight clash as he took up the 


390 


THE ABBOT. 


latter bunch. “Who touches the keys?” said the Lady; 
and while the page answered that the sleeve of his cloak 
had stirred them, she looked round, possessed herself of 
the bunch which now occupied the place of the genuine 
keys, and again turned to gaze on the supposed corpse- 
candles. 

“ I hold these gleams,” she said, after a moment’s con- 
sideration, “ to come, not from the churchyard, but from 
the hut of the old gardener Blinkhoolie. I wonder what 
thrift that churl drives, that of late he hath ever had light 
in his house till the night grew deep. I thought him an 
industrious, peaceful man. If he turns resetter of idle 
companions and night-walkers, the place must be rid of 
him.” 

“ He may work his baskets perchance,” said the page, 
desirous to stop the train of her suspicion. 

“ Or nets, may he not?” answered the Lady. 

“Ay, madam,” said Roland, “ for trout and salmon.” 

“ Or for fools and knaves,” replied the Lady ; “ but this 
shall be looked after to-morrow. I wish your Grace and 
your company a good evening. Randal, attend us.” And 
Randal, who waited in the ante-chamber, after having sur- 
rendered his bunch of keys, gave his escort to his mistress 
as usual, while, leaving the Queen’s apartments, she retired 
to her own. 

“ To-morrow ! ” said the page, iiibbing his hands with 
glee as he repeated the Lady's last words, “ fools look to 
to-morrow, and wise folk use to-night. May I pray you, 
my gracious liege, to retire for one half-hour, until all the 
castle is composed to rest ? I must go and rub with oil 
these blessed implements of our freedom. Courage and 
constancy, and all will go well, provided our friends on the 
shore fail not to send the boat you spoke of.” 

“ Fear them not,” said Catherine, “ they are true as steel 
— if our dear mistress do but maintain her noble and royal 
courage.” * 

“ Doubt not me, Catherine,” replied the Queen ; “ a 
while since I was overborne, but I have recalled the spirit 
of my earlier and more sprightly days, when I used to ac- 
company my armed nobles, and wish to be myself a man, 
to know what life it was to be in the fields with sword and 
buckler, jack and knapscap.” 

“ Oh, the lark lives not a gayer life, nor sings a lighter 


* Note M. Queen Mary’s demeanor. 


7'IIE ABBOT. 


391 


and gayer so^ than the merry soldier," answered Cather- 
ine. \our Grace shall be in the midst of them soon, and 
the look of such a liege Sovereign will make each of your 

ta°sk ^ ^ “y 

" We have but brief time,” said Queen Mary ; "one of 
the two lights in the cottage is extinguished— that shows 
tne boat is put off. 

“They will row very slow,” said the page, “or kent 
where depth permits, to avoid noise. To our several tasks 
—1 will communicate with the good Father.” 

At the dead hour of midnight, when ail was silent in the 
castle, the page put the key into the lock of the wicket 
vhich opened into the garden, and which was at the bot- 
tom of a staircase which descended from the Queen’s apart- 
u smoothly and softly, thou good bolt ” 

said he, if ever oil softened rust !” and his precautions 
had been so effectual, that the bolt revolved with little or 
no sound of resistance. He ventured not to cross the 
threshold, but exchanging a word with the disguised Ab- 
bot, asked if the boat were ready ? 

“ This half-hour,” said the sentinel. “ She lies beneath 
the wall, too close under the islet to be seen by the warder 
but I fear she will hardly escape his notice in putting off 
again.” ^ ^ 

“The darkness,” said the page, “and our profound 
^lence may take her off unobserved, as she came in. 
Hildebrand has the watch on the tower — a heavy-headed 
knave, who holds a can of ale to be the best head-piece 
upon a night-watch. He sleeps for a wager.” 

“ Then bring the Queen,” said the Abbot, “and I will 
call Henry Seyton to assist them to the boat.” 

On tiptoe, with noiseless step and suppressed breath 
trembling at every rustle of their own apparel, one after 
another the fair prisoners glided down the windino- stair 
under the guidance of Roland Graeme, and were received 
at the wicket-gate by Henry Seyton and the churchman. 
The former seemed instantly to take upon himself the 
whole direction of the enterprise. “ My Lord Abbot,” he 
said, giv e my sister your arm — I wdll conduct the Oueen 
—and that youth will have the honor to guide'^Lady 
Fleming.” ^ 

This was no time to dispute the arrangement, although 
it was not that which Roland Graeme w^ould have chosen. 
Catherine Seyton, w'ho w^ell knew' the garden path, tripped 


392 


THE ABBOT. 


on before like a sylph, rather leading the Abbot than re- 
ceiving assistance — the Queen, her native spirit prevailing 
over female fear, and a thousand painful reflections, moved 
steadily forward, by the assistance of Henry Seyton — 
while the Lady Fleming encumbered with her fears and 
her helplessness, Roland Graeme, who followed in the rear, 
and who bore under the other arm a packet of necessaries 
belonging to the Queen. The door of the garden, which 
communicated with the shore of the islet, yielded to one 
of the keys of which Roland had possessed himself, al- 
though not until he had tried several — a moment of anxious 
terror and expectation. The ladies were then partly led, 
partly carried, to the side of the lake, where a boat with 
six rowers attended them, the men couched along the bot- 
tom to secure them from observation. Henry Seyton 
placed the Queen in the stern ; the Abbot offered to assist 
Catherine, but she was seated by the Queen’s side before 
he could utter his proffer of help ; and Roland Graeme was 
just lifting Lady Fleming over the boat-side, when a 
thought suddenly occurred to him, and exclaiming, “For- 
gotten, forgotten! wait for me but one half-minute,” he 
replaced on the shore the helpless Lady of the bed-cham- 
ber, threw the Queen’s packet into the boat, and sped back 
through the garden with the noiseless speed of a bird on 
the wing. 

“ By Heaven, he is false at last ! ” said Seyton ; “ I ever 
feared it 1 ” 

“He is as true,” said Catherine, “as Heaven itself, and 
that I will maintain.” 

“ Be silent, minion,” said her brother, “for shame, if not 
for fear — Fellows, put off, and row for your lives !” 

“ Help me, help me on board ! ” said the deserted Lady 
Fleming, and that louder than prudence warranted. 

“Put off — put off!” cried Henry Seyton; “leave all 
behind, so the Queen is safe.” 

“Will you permit this, madam?” said Catherine, im- 
ploringly ; “you leave your deliverer to death.” 

“ I will not,” said the Queen. — “Seyton, I command you 
to stay at every risk.” 

“ Pardon me, madam, if I disobey,” said the intractable 
young man ; and with one hand lifting in Lady Fleming, 
he began himself to push off the boat. 

She was two fathoms’ length from the shore, and the 
rowers were getting her head round, when Roland Graeme, 
arriving, bounded from the beach, and attained the boat. 


THE ABBOT. 


393 

overturning Seyton, on whom he lighted. The youth 
s^vore a deep but suppressed oath, and stopping Graeme 

with hKn ‘ t “Your plale is not 

" dames-keep at the head and trim the 

QueeiTi^ way— give way— Row, for God and the 

® obeyed, and began to pull vigorously, 
y® not muffle the oars?” said Roland Gr^me- 
the dash must awaken the sentinel— Row, lads, and get 
out of reach of shot; for had not old Hildebrand, the 

must hVe"waked him.” Ais whispering 

“ It was all thine own delay,” said Seyton ; “ thou shalt 
re^on with me hereafter for that and other matters.” 

But Roland’s apprehension was verified too instantly to 
permit him to reply. The sentinel, whose slumbering had 
withsto^ the whispering, was alarmed by the dash of the 

oars. His challenge was instantly heard. “A boat a 

boat 1— bring to, or I shoot !” And as they continued to 
PuY he called aloud, “Treason ! treason ! ” riin<^ 

e bell of the castle, and discharged his arquebuse at the 
boat. Ihe ladies crowded on each other like startled 
wild-fowl, at the flash and report of the piece, while the 
men urged the rowers to the utmost speed. They heard 
more than one ball whiz along the surface of the lake at 
no great distance from their little bark; and from the 
lights, which glanced like meteors from window to win- 
dow, it was evident the whole castle was alarmed and 
their escape discovered. ’ 

“Pull ! ” again exclaimed Seyton ; “stretch to your oars 
or I will spur you to the task with my dagger — they will 
launch a boat immediately.” 

“That is cared for,” said Roland ; “I locked gate and 
wicket on them when I went back, and no boat will stir 
from the island this night, if doors of good oak and bolts 
of iron can keep men within stone-walls. And now I re- 
sign my office of porter of Lochleven, and give the keys to 
the Kelpie’s keeping.” 

As the heavy keys plunged in the lake, the Abbot, who 
till then had been repeating his prayers, exclaimed, “Now, 
bless thee, my son! for thy ready prudence puts shame on 
us all.” * 

“ I knew,” said Mary, drawing her breath more freely, as 

• Note N. Escape of Queen Mary. 


394 


THE ABBOT. 


they were now out of reach of the musketry — “ I knew my 
squire’s truth, promptitude, and sagacity. I must have him 
dear friends with my no less true knights, Douglas and 
Seyton— but where, then, is Douglas ? ” 

“ Here, madam,” answered the deep and melancholy 
voice of the boatman who sat next her, and who acted as 

steersman. , ^ , x 

“ Alas ! was it you who stretched your body before me,^^ 
said the Queen, “when the balls were raining around us ?” 

“ Believe you,” said he, in a low tone, “ that Douglas 
would have resigned to any one the chance of protecting 
his Queen’s life with his own ? ” 

The dialogue was here interrupted by a shot or two from 
one of those small pieces of artillery called falconets, then 
used in defending castles. The shot was too vague to 
have any effect, but the broader flash, the deeper sound, 
the louder return which was made by the midnight echoes 
of Bennarty, terrified and imposed silence on the liberated 
prisoners. The boat was alongside of a rude quay or land- 
ing-place, running out from a garden of considerable ex- 
tent, ere any of them again attempted to speak. They 
landed, and while the Abbot returned thanks aloud to 
Heaven, which had thus far favored their enterprise, 
Douglas enjoyed the best reward of his desperate under- 
taking, in conducting the Queen to the house of the gar- 
dener. Yet, not unmindful of Roland Graeme even in that 
moment of terror and exhaustion, Mary expressly com- 
manded Seyton to give his assistance to Fleming, while 
Catherine voluntarily, and without bidding, took the arm 
of the page. Seyton presently resigned Lady Fleming to 
the care of the Abbot, alleging, he must look after their 
horses ; and his attendants, disencumbering themselves of 
their boat-cloaks, hastened to assist him. 

While Mary spent in the gardener’s cottage the few min- 
utes which were necessary to prepare the steeds for their 
departure, she perceived, in a corner, the old man to whom 
the garden belonged, and called him to approach. He 
came as it were with reluctance. 

“ How, brother,” said the Abbot, “ so slow to welcome 
thy royal Queen and mistress to liberty and to her king- 
dom ,! ” 

The old man, thus admonished, came forward, and, in 
good terms of speech, gave her Grace joy of her deliver- 
ance. The Queen returned him thanks in the most gracious 
manner, and added, “It will remain to us to offer some 


the abbot. 


395 


immediate reward for your fidelity, for we wot well your 
house has been long the refuge in which our trusty^ ser- 
vants have met to concert measures for our freedom ” So 
saying, she offered gold,* and added, “We will consider 
your services more fully hereafter.” 

iha the Abbot, “kneel instantly, and 

thank her Grace s kindness.” ^ 

Good brother, that wert once a few steps under me 
younger,” replied the gardener, 
pettishly, let me do mine acknowledgments in my own 
way. Queens have knelt to me ere now, and in truth my 
knees are too old and stiff to bend even to this lovely-faced 
lady. May it please your Grace, if your Grace’s servants 
have occupied my house, so that I could not call it mine 
trodden down my flowers in the zeal of 
their midnight comings and goings, and destroyed the hope 
of the fruit season, by bringing their war horses into my 
garden, I do but crave of your Grace in requital, that you 
will choose your residence as far from me as possible. I 
am an old man who would willingly creep to my grave as 
easily as I can, in peace, good-will, and quiet labor.” 

1 promise you fairly, good man,” said the Queen, “I 
will not make yonder castle my residence again, if I can 
help It. But let me press on you this money. It will 
make some amends for the havoc we have made in your 
little garden and orchard.” 

“I thank your Grace, but it will make me not the least 
amends, said the old man. “ The ruined labors of a whole 
year are not so easily replaced to him who has perchance 
but that one year to live ; and besides, they tell me I must 

leave this place and become a wanderer in mine old ao-e 

I that have nothing on earth saving these fruit-trees, and a 
few old parchments and family secrets not worth knowing 
As for gold, if I had loved it, I might have remained Lord 
Abbot of Saint Mary’s— and yet I wot not— for, if Abbot 
Boniface be but the poor peasant Blinkhoolie, his successor 
the Abbot Ambrosius, is still transmuted for the worse into 
the guise of a sword-and-buckler man.” 

“ Is this indeed the Abbot Boniface of whom I have 
heard ? ” said the Queen. “ It is indeed I who should have 
bent the knee for your blessing, good Father.” 

“Bend no knee to me. Lady! The blessing of an old 
man, who is no longer an Abbot, go with you over dale 
and down — I hear the trampling of your horses.” 

“ Farewell, Father,” said the. Queen. “ When we ar« 


39 ^ 


THE ABBOT. 


once more seated at Holyrood, we will neither forget thee 
nor thine injured garden.” 

“ Forget us both,” said the Ex-Abbot Boniface, “ and 
may God be with you ! ” 

As they hurried out of the house they heard the old man 
talking and muttering to himself, as he hastily drew bolt 
and bar behind them. 

“ The revenge of the Douglases will reach the poor old 
man,” said the Queen. “ God help me, I ruin every one 
whom I approach ! ” 

“ His safety is cared for,” said Seyton ; “ he must not 
remain here, but will be privately conducted to a place of 
greater security. But I would your Grace were in the 
saddle. To horse ! to horse ! ” 

The party of Seyton and of Douglas were increased to 
about ten by those attendants who had remained with the 
horses. The Queen and her ladies, with all the rest vvho 
came from the boat, were instantly mounted; and holding 
aloof from the village, which was already alarmed by the 
firing from the castle, with Douglas acting as their guide, 
they soon reached the open ground, and began to ride as 
fast as was consistent with keeping together in good order. 


CHAPTER THIRTY-SIXTH. 

He mounted himself on a coal-black steed, 

And her on a freckled gray, 

With a bugelet horn hung down from his side, 

And roundly they rode away. 

Old Ballad. 

The influence of the free air, the rushing of the horses 
over high and low, the ringing of the bridles, the excitation 
at once arising from a sense of freedom and of rapid 
motion, gradually dispelled the confused and dejected sort 
of stupefaction by which Queen Mary was at first over- 
whelmed. She could not at last conceal the change of her 
feelings to the person who rode at her rein, and who she 
doubted not was the Father Ambrosius ; for Seyton, with 
all the heady impetuosity of a youth, proud, and justly so, 
of his first successful adventure, assumed all the bustle and 
importance of commander of the little party, which es- 
corted, in the language of the time, the Fortune of Scot- 
land. He now led the van, now checked his bounding 


THE ABBOT. 


Z97 

Steed till the rear had come up, exhorted the leaders to 
keep a steady though rapid pace, and commanded those 
who were hindmost of the party to use their spurs, and 
aJlow no interval to take place in their line of march • and 
anon he was beside the Queen, or her ladies, inqu’irincr 
how they brooked the hasty journey, and whether they had 
any commands for him. But while Seyton thus busied 
nimseit in the general cause with some advantage to the 
regular order of the march, and a good deal of personal 
ostentation, the horseman who rode beside the Queen gave 
her his full and undivided attention, as if he had been 
waiting upon some superior being. When the road was 
rugged and dangerous he abandoned almost entirely the 
care of his own horse, and kept his hand constantly upon 
the Queen’s bridle ; if a river or larger brook traversed 
their course, his left arm retained her in the saddle while 
his right held her palfrey’s rein. * 

“ I had not thought, reverend Father,” said the Queen 
when they reached the other bank, “ that the convent bred 
such good horsemen.” The person she addressed sighed 
but made no other answer. “ I know not how it is ” said 
Queen Mary, “ but either the sense of freedom, or the 
pleasure of my favorite exercise, from which I have been 
so long debarred, or both combined, seem to have o-iven 
wings to me— no fish ever shot through the water, no bird 
through the air, with the hurried feeling of liberty and 
rapture with which I sweep through this night-wind, and 
o\"er these wolds. Ts ay, such is the magic of feeling myself 
once more in the saddle, that I could almost swear I am at 
this moment mounted on my favorite Rosabelle, who was 
never matched in Scotland for swiftness, for ease of motion 
and for sureness of foot.” ’ 

“ And if the horse which bears so dear a burden could 
speak,” answered the deep voice of the melancholy George 
of Douglas, “would she not reply, who but Rosabelle 
ought at such an emergence as this to serve her beloved 
mistress, or who but Douglas ought to hold her bridle- 
rein ? ” 

Queen Mary started; she foresaw at once all the evils 
like to arise to herself and him from the deep enthusiastic 
passion of this youth ; but her feelings as a woman, grate- 
ful at once and compassionate, prevented her assuming the 
dignity of a Queen, and she endeavored to continue the 
conversation in an indifferent tone. 

“ Methought,” she said,. “ I heard that, at the division of 


398 


THE ABBOT. 


my spoils, Rosabelle had become the property of Lord 
Morton’s paramour and ladye-love, Alice.” 

“The noble palfrey had indeed been destined to so base 
a lot,” answered Douglas ; “she was kept under four keys, 
and under the charge of a numerous crew of grooms and 
domestics — but Queen Mary needed Rosabelle, and Rosa- 
belle is here.” 

“And was it well, Douglas,” said Queen Mary, “when 
such fearful risks of various kinds must needs be encoun- 
tered, that you should augment their perils to yourself, 
for a subject of so little moment as a palfrey ? ” 

“ Do you call that of little moment,” answered Douglas, 
“ which has afforded you a moment’s pleasure ? — Did you 
not start with joy when I first said you were mounted on 
Rosabelle ? — And to purchase you that pleasure, though it 
were to last no logger than the flash of lightning doth, 
would not Douglas have risked his life a thousand times ? ” 

“ Oh, peace, Douglas, peace,” said the Queen, “ this is 
unfitting language ; and, besides, I would speak,” said she, 
recollecting herself, “with the Abbot of Saint Mary’s — 
Nay, Douglas, I will not let you quit my rein in displeasure.” 

“ Displeasure, lady ! ” answered Douglas : “ alas ! sorrow 
is all that I can feel for your well-warranted contempt — I 
should be as soon displeased with Heaven for refusing the 
wildest wish which mortal can form.” 

“ Abide by my rein, however,” said Mary, “ there is room 
for my Lord Abbot on the other side ; and, besides, I doubt 
if his assistance would be so useful to Rosabelle and me as 
yours has been, should the road again require it.” 

The Abbot came up on the other side, and she immedi- 
ately opened a conversation with him on the topic of the state 
of parties, and the plan fittest for her to pursue in conse- 
quence of her deliverance. In this conversation Douglas 
took little share, and never but when directly applied to 
by the Queen, while, as before, his attention seemed en- 
tirely engrossed by the care of Mary’s personal safety. 
She learned, however, she had a new obligation to him, 
since, by his contrivance, the Abbot, whom he had fur- 
nished with the family pass-word, was introduced into the 
castle as one of the garrison. 

Long before daybreak they ended their hasty and peril- 
ous journey before the gates of Niddrie, a castle in West 
Lothian, belonging to Lord Seyton.* When the' Queen 

* [This castle is now the property of Lord Hopetoun. It stands — a ruin 
— neiarly midway between Edinburgh and Linlithgow.] 


Till'. AT TOT. 


399 


was about to alight, Henry Seyton, preventing Douglas, 
received her in his arms, and, kneeling down, prayed her 
Majesty to enter the house of his father, her faithful ser- 
vant. 

“ Your Grace,” he added, ‘‘may repose yourself here in 
perfect safety — it is already garrisoned with good men for 
your protection ; and I have sent a post to my father, 
whose instant arrival, at the head of five hundred men, 
may be looked for. Do not dismay yourself, therefore, 
should your sleep be broken by the trampling of horse ; 
but only think that here are some scores more of the saucy 
Seytons come to attend you.” 

“ And by better friends than the saucy Seytons, a Scot- 
tish Queen cannot be guarded,” replied Mary. “ Rosabelle 
went fleet as the summer breeze, and well nigh as easy ; 
but it is long since I have been a traveller, and I feel that 
repose will be welcome. Catherine, ma mignonne^ you must 
sleep in my apartment to-night, and bid me welcome to 
your noble father’s castle. Thanks, thanks to all my kind 
deliverers — thanks, and a good night is all I can now offer ; 
but if I climb once more to the upper side of Fortune’s 
wheel, I will not have her bandage. Mary Stuart will 
keep her eyes open, and distinguish her friends. — Seyton, 
I need scarcely recommend the venerable Abbot, the 
Douglas, and my page, to your honorable care and hospi- 
tality.” 

Henry Seyton bowed, and Catherine and Lady Fleming 
attended the Queen to her apartment ; where, acknowledg- 
ing to them that she should have found it difficult in that 
moment to keep her promise of holding her eyes open, 
she resigned herself to repose, and awakened not till the 
morning was advanced. 

Mary’s first feeling when she awoke, was the doubt of 
her freedom ; and the impulse prompted her to start from 
bed, and hastily throwing her mantle over her shoulders, 
to look out at the casement of her apartment. Oh, sight 
of joy ! instead of the crystal sheet of Lochleven, unaltered 
save by the influence of the wind, a landscape of wood 
and moorland lay before her, and the park around the cas- 
tle was occupied by the troops of her most faithful and 
most favorite nobles. 

“ Rise, rise, Catherine,” cried the enraptured Princess ; 
“ arise and come hither ! — here are swords and spears in 
true hands, and glittering armor on loyal breasts. Here 
are banners, my girl, floating in the wind, as lightly as 


400 


THE ABBOT. 


summer clouds — Great God ! what pleasure to my weary 
eyes to trace their devices — thine own brave father’s — the 
princely Hamilton’s — the faithful Fleming’s — See — see-^ 
they have caught a glimpse of me, and throng toward the 
window ! ” 

She flung the casement open, and with her bare head, 
from which the tresses flew back loose and dishevelled, 
her fair arm slenderly veiled by her mantle, returned by 
motion and sign, the exulting shouts of the warriors, which 
echoed for many a furlong around. When the first burst 
of ecstatic joy was over, she recollected how lightly she was 
dressed, and, putting her hands to her face, which was 
covered with blushes at the recollection, withdrew abruptly 
from the window. The cause of her retreat was easily 
conjectured, and increased the general enthusiasm for a 
Princess, who had forgotten her rank in her haste to ac- 
knowledge the services of her subjects. The unadorned 
beauties of the lovely woman, too, moved the military 
spectators more than the highest display of her regal state 
might ; and what might have seemed too free in her mode 
of appearing before them, was more than atoned for by 
the enthusiasm of the moment, and by the delicacy evinced 
in her hasty retreat. Often as the shouts died away, as 
often were they renewed, till wood and hill rung again ; 
and many a deep oath was made that morning on the cross 
of the sword, that the hand should not part with the 
weapon, till Mary Stuart was restored to her rights. But 
what are promises, what the hopes of mortals? In ten 
days, these gallant and devoted votaries were slain, were 
captives, or had fled. 

Mary flung herself into the nearest seat, and still blush- 
ing, yet half smiling, exclaimed, “ J/iz mignonne, what will 
they think of me ? — to show myself to them with my bare 
feet hastily thrust into the slippers— only this loose mantle 
about me — my hair loose on my shoulders — my arms and 
neck so bare — Oh, the best they can suppose is, that her 
abode in yonder dungeon has turned their Queen’s brain ! 
But my rebel subjects saw me exposed when I was in the 
depth of affliction, why should I hold colder ceremony 
with these faithful and loyal men ? — Call Fleming, however, 
— I trust she has not forgotten the little mail with my ap- 
parel — We must be as brave as we can, mignonneT 

“Nay, madam, our good Lady Fleming was in no case 
to remember anything.” 

“ You jest, Catherine,” said the Queen, somewhat of- 


THE ABBOT. 


401 


fended ; “ it is not in her nature surely, to forget her duty 
so far as to leave us without a change of apparel?” 

“ Roland Graeme, madam, took care of that,” answered 
Catherine ; “for he threw the mail, with your Highness’s 
clothes and jewels, into the boat, ere he ran back to lock 
the gate— I never saw so awkward a page as that youth— 
the packet well-nigh fell on my head.” 

“ He shall make thy heart amends, my girl, ’’said Queen 
Mary, laughing, “for that and all other offences given. 
But call Fleming, and let us put ourselves into apparel to 
meet our faithful lords.” 

Such had been the preparations, and such was the 
skill of Lady Fleming, that the Queen appeared before 
her assembled nobles in such attire as became, though it 
could not enhance, her natural dignity. With the most 
winning courtesy, she expressed to each individual her 
grateful thanks, and dignified not only every noble, but 
many of the lesser barons, by her particular attention. 

“ And whither now, my lords ? ” she said ; “ what way do 
your counsels determine for us?” 

“To Draphane Castle,” replied Lord Arbroath, “if your 
Majesty is so pleased ; and thence to Dumbarton, to place 
your Grace’s person in safety, after which we long to prove 
if these traitors will abide us in the field.” 

“ And when do we journey ? ” 

“ We propose,” said Lord Seyton, “if your Grace’s fatigue 
will permit, to take horse after the morning’s meal.” 

“Your pleasure, my lords, is mine,” replied the Queen ; 
“we will rule our journey by your wisdom now, an"d hope 
hereafter to have the advantage of governing by it our 
kingdom. You will permit my ladies and me, my good 
lords, to break our fasts along with you — We must be half 
soldiers ourselves, and set state apart.” 

Low bowed many a helmeted head at this gracious prof- 
fer, when the Queen, glancing her eyes through the as- 
sembled leaders, missed both Dougfas and Roland Graeme, 
and inquired for them in a whisper to Catherine Seyton. 

“ They are in yonder oratory, madam, sad enough,” re- 
plied Catherine; and the Queen observed that her fa- 
vorite’s eyes were red with weeping. 

“This must not be,” said the Queen. “Keep the com- 
pany amused — I will seek them and introduce them my- 
self.” 

She went into the oratory, where the first she met was 
George Douglas, standing or rather reclining, in the recess 
26 


402 


THE .IBB or. 


of a window, his back rested against the wall, and his arms 
folded on his breast. At the sight of the Queen he started, 
and his countenance showed, for an instant, an expression 
of intense delight, which was instantly exchanged for his 
usual deep melancholy. 

“What means this ?” she said ; “ Douglas, why does the 
first deviser and bold executor of the happy scheme for 
our freedom shun the company of his fellow-nobles and of 
the Sovereign whom he has obliged ? ” 

“ Madam^” replied Douglas, “those whom you grace 
with your presence bring followers to aid your cause, 
wealth to support your state, — can offer you halls in which 
to feast, and impregnable castles for your defence. I am 
a houseless and landless man — disinherited by my mother, 
and laid under her malediction — disowned by my name and 
kindred — who bring nothing to your standard but a single 
sword, and the poor life of its owner.” 

“ Do you mean to upbraid me, Douglas,” replied the 
Queen, “ by showing what you have lost for my sake ? ” 

“ God forbid, madam ! ” interrupted the young man 
eagerly ; “ were it to do again, and had I ten times as 
much rank and wealth, and twenty times as many friends 
to lose, my losses would be overpaid by the first step you 
made, as a free princess, upon the soil of your native king- 
dom.” 

“And what then ails you, that you will not rejoice with 
those who rejoice upon the same joyful occasion?” said 
the Queen. 

“ Madam,” replied the youth, “ though exheridated and 
disowned, I am yet a Douglas : with most of yonder nobles 
my family have been in feud for ages — a cold reception 
amongst them were an insult, and a kind one yet more 
humiliating.” 

“For shame, Douglas,” replied the Queen, “shake off 
this unmanly gloom ! I can make thee match for the best 
of them in title and fortune, and, believe me, I will, — Go 
then amongst them, I command you.” 

“That word,” said Douglas, “is enough — I go. This 
only let me say, that not for wealth or title would I have 
done that which I have done — Mary Stuart will not, and 
the Queen cannot, reward me.” 

So saying, he left the oratory, mingled with the nobles, 
and placed himSelf at the bottom of the table. The Queen 
looked after him, and put her kerchief to her eyes. 

“Now, Our Lady pity me,” she said, “for no sooner are 


THE ABBOT. 


403 


my prison cares ended, than those which beset me as a 
woman and a queen again thicken around me. Happy 
Elizabeth ! to whom political interest is everything, and 
whose heart never betrays thy head. And now must I 
seek this other boy, if I would prev’^ent daggers-drawing 
betwixt him and the young Seyton.” 

Roland Graeme was in the same oratory, but at such a 
distance from Douglas that he could not overhear what 
passed betwixt the Queen and him. He also was moody 
and thoughtful, but cleared his brow at the Queen’s ques- 
tion, “ How now, Roland ? you are negligent in your at- 
tendance this morning. Are you so much overcome with 
your night’s ride ?” 

“Not so, gracious madam,” answered Graeme ; “ but I 
am told the page of Lochleven is not the page of Niddrie 
Castle ; and so Master Henry Seyton hath in a manner 
been pleased to supersede my attendance.” 

“Now, Heaven forgive me,” said the Queen, “how soon 
these cock-chickens begin to spar! — with children and 
boys, at least, I may be a queen. — I will have you friends. 
— Some one send me Henry Seyton hither.” As she spoke 
the last words aloud, the youth whom she had named en- 
tered the apartment. “Come hither,” she said, “Henry 
Seyton — I will have you give your hand to this youth, who 
so well aided in the plan of my escape.” 

“Willingly, madam,” answered Seyton, “so that the 
youth will grant me, as a boon, that he touch not the hand 
of another Seyton whom he knows of. My hand has 
passed current for hers with him before now — and to win 
my friendship, he must give up thoughts of my sister’s 
love.” 

“ Henry Seyton,” said the Queen, “ does it become you 
to add any condition to my command? ” 

“Madam,” said Henry, “I am the servant of your 
Grace’s throne, son to the most loyal man in Scotland. 
Our goods, our castles, our blood, are yours : Our honor 
is in our own keeping. I could say more, but” 

“Nay, speak on, rude boy,” said the Queen; “what 
avails it that I am released from Lochleven, if I am thus 
enthralled under the yoke of my pretended deliverers, and 
prevented from doing justice to one who has deserved as 
well of me as yourself ?” 

“ Be not in this distemperature for me, sovereign Lady,” 
said Roland ; “ this young gentleman, being the faithful 
servant of your Grace, and the brother of Catherine Sey- 


404 


THE ABBOT. 


ton, bears that about him which will charm down my pas- 
sion at the hottest.” 

“ I warn thee once more,” said Henry Seyton, haughtily, 
‘‘that you make no speech which may infer that the 
daughter of Lord Seyton can be aught to thee beyond 
what she is to every churl’s blood in Scotland.” 

The Queen was again about to interfere, for Roland’s 
complexion rose, and it became somewhat questionable 
how long his love for Catherine would suppress the nat- 
ural fire of his temper. But the interposition of another 
person, hitherto unseen, prevented Mary’s interference. 
There was in the oratory a separate shrine, enclosed with 
a high screen of pierced oak, within which was placed an 
image of Saint Bennet, of peculiar sanctity. From this 
recess, in which she had been probably engaged in her 
devotions, issued suddenly Magdalen Graeme, and ad- 
dressed Henry Seyton, in reply to his last offensive expres- 
sions — “And of what clay, then, are they moulded, these 
Seytons, that the blood of the Graemes may not aspire to 
mingle with theirs? Know, proud boy, that when I call 
this youth my daughter’s child, I affirm his descent from 
Malise, Earl of Strathern, called Malise with the Bright 
Brand ; and I trow the blood of your house springs from 
no higher source.” 

“Good mother,” said Seyton, “methinks your sanctity 
should make you superior to these worldly vanities ; and 
indeed it seems to have rendered you somewhat oblivious 
touching them, since, to be of gentle descent, the father’s 
name and lineage must be as well qualified as the mother’s.” 

“ And if I say he comes of the blood of Avenel by the 
father’s side,” replied Magdalen Graeme, “name I not 
blood as richly colored as thine own?” 

“ Of Avenel ! ” said the Queen ; “ is my page descended 
of Avenel ? ” 

' gracious Princess, and the last male heir of that 

ancient house — Julian Avenel was — his father, who fell in 
battle against the Southron.” 

“I have heard the tale of sorrow,” said the Queen ; “it 
was thy daughter, then, who followed that unfortunate 
baron to the field, and died on his body ? Alas ! how many 
ways does woman’s affection find to work out her own mis- 
ery ! The tale has oft been told and sung in hall and bower 
— And thou, Roland, art that child of misfortune, who was 
left among the dead and dying ? Henry Seyton, he is 
thine equal in blood and birth.” 


THE ABBOT. 


405 


“ Sc^cely so,” said Henry Seyton, “ even were he legiti- 
mate ; but if the tale be told and sung aright, Julian 
Avenel was a false knight, and his leman a frail and credu- 
lous maiden.” 


1 ^ Heaven, thou liest ! ” said Roland Grteme, and 

laid his hand on his sword. The entrance of Lord Seyton 
however, prevented violence. ’ 

“Save me, my lord,” said the Queen, “and separate 
these wild and untamed spirits.” ^ 

How, Henry, ’ said the Baron, “are my castle, and the 
Queen s presence, no checks on thine insolence and im- 
petuosity ?— And with whom art thou brawling ?— unless 
my eyes spell that token false, it is with the very youth 
who aided me so gallantly in the skirmish with the Leslies 
Let me look, fair youth, at the medal which thou wear- 
est in thy cap. By Saint Bennet it is the same !— Henry 
1 command thos to forbear him, as thou lovest my bless- 
ing” 


“And as you honor my command,” said the Queen* 
“good service hath he done me.” 

• replied young Seyton, “as when he ear- 

ned the billet enclosed in the sword-sheath to Lochleven 
marry, the good youth knew no more than a pack-horse 
what he was carrying.” 

“ But I, who dedicated him to this great work,” said 
Magdalen Graeme— “I, by whose advice and agency this 
just heir hath been unloosed from her thraldom— I, who 
spared not the last remaining hope of a falling house in 
this great action — I, at least, knew and counselled ; and 
what merit may be mine, let the reward, most gracious 
Queen, descend upon this youth. My ministry here is 
ended ; you are free— a sovereign Princess, at the head of 
a gallant army, surrounded by valiant barons — My service 
could avail you no farther, but might well prejudice you ; 
your fortune now rests upon men’s hearts and men’s swords 
—May they prove as trusty as the faith of women ! ” 

“ You will not leave us, mother,” said the Queen— “you 
whose practices in our favor were so powerful, who dared 
so many dangers, and wore so many disguises, to blind our 
enemies and to confirm our friends — you will not leave us 
in the dawn of our reviving fortunes, ere we have time to 
know and to thank you ? ” 

“You cannot know her,” answered Magdalen Graeme, 
“who knows not herself— there are times, when, in this 
woman’s frame of mind, there is the strength of him of 


THE ABBOT. 


406 

Gath— in this overtoiled brain, tlie wisdom of the most 
sage counsellor — and again the mist is on me, and my 
strength is weakness, my wisdom folly. I have spoken 
before princes and cardinals— ay, noble princes of thine 
own house of Lorraine ; and I know not whence the words 
of persuasion came which flowed from my lips, and were 
drunk in by their ears.— And now, even when I most need 
words of persuasion, there is something which chokes my 
voice, and robs me of utterance.” 

“ If there be aught in my power to do thee pleasure, 
said the Queen, “the barely naming it shall avail as well 
as all thine eloquence.” 

“Sovereign Lady,” replied the enthusiast, “it shames 
me that at this high moment something of human frailty 
should cling to *one, whose vows the saints have heard, 
whose labors in the rightful cause Heaven has prospered. 
But it will be thus while the living spirit iS38hrined in the 
clay of mortality — I will yield to the folly,” she said, weep- 
ing as she spoke, “ and it shall be the last. Then seizing 
Roland’s hand, she led him to the Queen’s feet, kneeling 
herself upon one knee, and causing him to kneel on both. 

“ Mighty Princess,” she said, “look on this flower— it was 
found by a kindly stranger on a bloody field of battle, and 
long it was ere my anxious eyes saw, and my arms pressed, 
all that was left of my only daughter. For your sake, and 
for that of the holy faith we both profess, I could leave 
this plant, while it was yet tender, to the nurture of 
strangers — ay, of enemies, by whom, perchance, his blood 
would have been poured forth as wine, had the heretic 
Glendinning known that he had in his house the heir of 
Julian Avenel. Since then I have seen him only in a 
few hours of doubt and dread, and now I part with the 
child of my love— for ever— for ever !— Oh, for every 
weary step I have made in your rightful cause, in this and 
in foreign lands, give protection to the child whom I must 
no more call mine ! ” 

“ I swear to you, mother,” said the Queen, deeply af- 
fected, “ that for your sake and his own, his happiness 
and fortunes shall be our charge ! ” 

“I thank you, daughter of princes,” said Magdalen, and 
pressed her lips, first to the Queen’s hand, then to the 
brow of her grandson. “And now,” she said, drying her 
tears, and rising with dignity, “ Earth has had its own, and 
Heaven claims the rest. — Lioness of Scotland, go forth and 
conquer ! and if the prayers of a devoted votaress can avail 


THE ABBOT. 


407 


thee, they will rise in many a land, and from many a dis- 
tant shrine. I will glide like a ghost from land to land 
from temple to temple ; and where the very name of mv 
country IS unknown, the priests shall ask who is the Queen 
of that distant northern land, for whom the aged ptlo-rim 
was so fervent in prayer. Farewell ! Honor be thine“and 
earthly prosperity, if it be the wiii of God— if not, may tlie 
penance thou shalt do here ensure the happiness here- 
after . Let no one speak or follow me— my resolution is 
taken — my vow cannot be cancelled.” 

She glided from their presence as she spoke, and her 
last look was upon her beloved grandchild. He would 
have risen and followed, but the Queen and Lord Seyton 
interfered. 


Press not on her now,” said Lord Seyton, “if you 
would not lose her forever. Many a time have we seen 
the sainted mother, and often at the most needful moment ; 
but to press on her privacy, or to thwart her purpose, is a 
crime which she cannot pardon. I trust we shall yet see 
her at her need — a holy woman she is for certain, and 
dedicated wholly to prayer and penance ; and hence the 
heretics hold her as one distracted,. while true Catholics 
deem her a saint.” 

“Let me then hope,” said the Queen, “that )-ou, my 
lord, will aid me in the execution of her last request.”' 

“What ! in the protection of my young second .^—cheer- 
fully — that is, in all that your majesty can think it fitting 
to ask of me. Henry, give thy hand upon the instant to 
Roland Avenel, for so I presume he must now be called.” 

“And shall be Lord of the Barony,” said the Queen, 
“if God prosper our rightful arms.” 

“ It can only be to restore it to my kind protectress, who 
now holds it,” said young Avenel. “ I would rather be 
landless all my life, than she lost a rood of ground by me.” 

“Nay,” said the Queen, looking to Lord Seyton, “his 
mind matches his birth — Henrv, thou hast not yet eiven 
thy hand.” 

“ It is his,” said Henry, giying it with some appearance 

of courtesy, but whispering Roland at the same time, 

“ For all this thou hast not my sister’s.” 

“ May it please your Grace,” said Lord Seyton, “ now 
that these passages are over, to honor our poor meal. 
Time it were that our banners were reflected in the Clyde. 
We must to horse with as little delay as may be.” 


4o8 


THE ABBOT. 


CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVENTH. 

Ay, sir — our ancient crown, in these wild times, 

Oft stood upon a cast — the gamester’s ducat. 

So often staked, and lost, and then regain’d, 

Scarce knew so many hazards. 

The Spanish Father. 

It is not our object to enter into the historical part of 
the reign of the ill-fated Mary, or to recount how, during 
the week which succeeded her flight from Lochleven, her 
partisans mustered around her with their followers, form- 
ing a gallant army, amounting to six thousand men. So 
much light has been lately thrown on the most minute de- 
tails of the period, by Mr. Chalmers, in his valuable His- 
tory of Queen Mary, that the reader may be safely referred 
to it for the fullest information which ancient records 
afford concerning that interesting time.* It is sufficient 
for our purpose to say, that while Mary’s headquarters 
were at Hamilton, the Regent and his adherents had, in 
the King’s name, assembled a host at Glasgow, inferior 
indeed to that of the Queen in numbers, but formidable 
from the military talents of Murray, Morton, the Laird of 
Grange, and others, who had been trained from their youth 
in foreign and domestic wars. 

In these circumstances, it was the obvious policy of 
Queen Mary to avoid a conflict, secure that were her per- 
son once in safety, the number of her adherents must 
daily increase ; whereas the forces of those opposed to her 
must, as had frequently happened in the previous history 
of her reign, have diminished, and their spirits become 
broken. And so evident was this to her counsellors, that 
they resolved their first step should be to place the Queen 
in the strong castle of Dumbarton, there to await the 
course of events, the arrival of succors from France, and 
the levies which were made by her adherents in every 
province of Scotland. Accordingly, orders were given 
that all men should be on horseback or on foot, apparelled 
in their armor, and ready to follow the Queen’s standard 
in array of battle, the avowed determination being to escort 
her to the Castle of Dumbarton in defiance of her enemies. 

* [Chalmers’ Life of Mary Queen of Scots, drawn from the State Papers, 
with subsidiary memoirs, was published at London 1819, 2 vols. 4to ; and 
a second edition, corrected and enlarged, 1822, 3 vols. 8vo.] 


THE ABBOT. 


409 


The muster was made upon Hamilton Moor, and the 
march commenced in all the pomp of feudal times. Mili- 
mry music sounded banners and pennons waved, armor 
glittered far and wide, and spears glanced and twinkled 
like stars in a frosty sky. The gallant spectacle of war- 
like parade was on this occasion dignified by the presence 
^^^self, who, with a fair retinue of ladies 
and household attendants, and a special guard of gentle- 
men, among whom young Seyton and Roland were dis- 
gave grace at once and confidence to the army 
which spread its ample files before, around, and behifid heV. 
Many churchmen also joined the cavalcade, most of whom 
aid not scruple to assume arms, and declare their intention 
of wielding them in defence of Mary and the Catholic 
laith. jNot so the Abbot of Saint Mary’s. Roland had 
not seen this prelate since the night of their escape from 
Tochleven, and he now beheld him, robed in the dress of 
his order, assume his station near the Queen’s person. 
Roland hastened to pull off his basnet and beseech the 
Abbot’s blessing. 

“ Thou hast it, my son ! ” said the priest ; “ I see thee 
now under thy true name, and in thy rightful garb. The 

helmet with the holly branch befits your brows well I 

have long waited for the hour thou shouldst assume it.” 

“ Then you knew of my descent, my good father ! ” said 
Roland. 


I did so, but it was under seal of confession from thy 
grandmother; nor was I at liberty to tell the secret, till she 
herself should make it known.” 

“ Her reason for such secrecy, my father ? ” said Roland 
Avenel. 

“ Fear, perchance, of my brother— a mistaken fear, for 
Halbert would not, to ensure himself a kingdom, have 
offered wrong to an orphan; besides that, your title, in 
quiet times, even had your father done your mother that 
justice which I well hope he did, could not have competed 
with that of my brother’s wife, the child of Julian’s elder 
brother.” 

“ They need fear no competition from me,” said Avenel. 
“ Scotland is wide enough, and there are many manors to 
win, without plundering my benefactor. But prove to me, 
my reverend father, that my father was just to my mother 
— show me that I may call myself a legitimate Avenel, and 
make me your bounden slave for ever.” 

“ Ay,” replied the Abbot, “ I hear the Seytons hold thee 


410 


THE ABBOT. 


cheap for that stain on thy shield. Something, however, 

I have learnt from the late Abbot Boniface, which, if it 
prove sooth, may redeem that reproach.” 

“Tell me that blessed news,” said Roland, “and the 
future service of my life” 

“Rash boy!” said the Abbot, “I should but madden 
thine impatient temper, by exciting hopes that may never 
be fulfilled— and is this a time for them ? Think on what 
perilous march we are bound, and if thou hast a sin un- 
confessed, neglect not the only leisure which Heaven may 
perchance afford thee for confession and absolution.” 

“ There will be time enough for both, I trust, when we 
reach Dumbarton,” answered the page. 

“Ay,” said the Abbot, “thou crowest as loudly as the 
rest — but we are not yet at Dumbarton, and there is a lion 
in the path.” 

“You mean Murray, Morton, and the other rebels at 
Glasgow, my reverend father? Tush ! they dare not look 
on the royal banner.” 

“ Even so,” replied the Abbot, “ speak many of those 
who are older, and should be wiser, than thou. I have re- 
turned from the southern shires, where I left many a chief 
of name arming in the Queen’s interest — I ^left the lords 
here wise and considerate men — I find them madmen on 
my return — they are willing, for mere pride and vain-glory, 
to brave the enemy, and to carry the Queen, as it were in 
triumph, past the walls of Glasgow, and under the beards 
of the adverse army. Seldom does Heaven smile on such 
mistimed confidence. We shall be encountered, and that 
to the purpose.” 

“And so much the better,” replied Roland; “the field of 
battle was my cradle.” 

“Beware it be not thy dying bed,” said the Abbot. 
“ But what avails it whispering to young wolves the dan- 
gers of the chase ? You will know, perchance, ere this day 
is out, what yonder men are, whom you hold in rash con- 
tempt.” 

“Why, what are they?” said Henry Seyton, who now 
joined them ; “ have they sinews of wire, and flesh of iron ? 
Will lead pierce and steel cut them ? If so, reverend father, 
we have little to fear.” 

“ They are evil men,” said the Abbot, “ but the trade of 
war demands no saints. Murray and Morton are known 
to be the best generals in Scotland. No one ever saw 
Lindesay’s or Ruthven’s back — Kirkaldy of Grange was 


THE ABBOT. 


I named by the Constable Montmorency the first soldier in 
I Europe— -My brother, too good a name for such a cause 
I has been far and wide known for a soldier.” 

“The better, the better!” said Seyton, triumphantly; 
1 f shall have all these traitors of rank and name in" a 
^ fair field before us. Our cause is the best, our numbers 
are the strongest, our hearts and limbs match theirs— 
Saint Bennet, and set on !” 

The Abbot made no reply, but seemed lost in reflection ; 
and his anxiety in some measure communicated itself to 
Roland Avenel, who ever, as their line c^f march led over 
^ a ridge or an eminence, cast an anxious look toward the 
towers of Glasgow, as if he expected to see symptoms of the 
enemy issuing forth. It was not that he feared the fight, but 
1 the issue was of such deep import to his countr)^ and to him- 
self, that the natural fire of his spirit burned with a less 
- lively, though with a more intense glow. Love, honor, 

! fame, fortune, all seemed to depend on the issue of one 
' field, rashly hazarded perhaps, but now likely to become 
! unavoidable and decisive. 

When at length their march came to be nearly parallel 
with the city of Glasgow, Roland became sensible that the 
( high grounds before them were already in part occupied 
by a force, showing, like their own, the royal banner of 
Scotland, and on the point of being supported by columns 
of infantry and squadrons of horse, which the city gates 
had poured forth, and which hastily advanced to sustain 
those troops who already possessed the ground in front of 
the Queen’s forces. Horseman after horseman galloped 
in from the advanced guard, with tidings that Murray had 
taken the field with his whole army ; that his object was 
to intercept the Queen’s march, and his purpose unques- 
tionable to hazard a battle. It was now that the tempers 
of men were subjected to a sudden and a severe trial ; and 
that those who had too presumptuously concluded that they 
would pass without combat, were something disconcerted, 
when, at once, and with little time to deliberate, they found 
themselves placed in front of a resolute enemy. Their 
chiefs immediately assembled around the Queen, and held 
a hasty council of war. Mary’s quivering lip confessed 
the fear which she endeavored to conceal under a bold and 
dignified demeanor. But her efforts were overcome by 
painful recollections of the disastrous issue of, her last 
appearance in arms at Carberry Hill ; and when she meant 
to have asked them their advice for ordering the battle, she 


412 


THE ABBOT. 


involuntarily inquired whether there were no means of es- 
capinff without an engagement. , , t j 

“ Escaping ? " answered the Lord Seyton ; ‘ when I stand 
as one to ten of your Highness’s enemies, I may think of 
escape— but never while I stand with three to two !” 

“ Battle ! battle ! ” exclaimed the assembled lords ; “we 
will drive the rebels from their vantage ground, as the 
hound turns the hare on the hillside. 

“ Methinks, my noble lords,” said the Abbot, “ it were as 
well to prevent his gaining that advantage. Our road lies 
through yonder hamlet on the brow, and whichever paity 
hath- the luck to possess it, with its little gardens and en- 
closures, will attain a post of great defence. 

“The reverend father is right,” said the Queen. “Oh, 
haste thee, Seyton, haste, and get thither before them 
they are marching like the wind.” 

Seyton bowed low, and turned his horse’s head— “Your 
Highness honors me,” he said^; “ I will instantly press for- 
ward and seize the pass.” 

“ Not before me, my lord, whose charge is the command 
of the vanguard,” said the Lord of Arbroath. 

“ Before you, or any Hamilton in Scotland, said the 
Seyton, “ having the Queen’s command — Follow me, gen- 
tlemen, my vassals and kinsmen — Saint Bennet, and set 

on !” . 

“And follow me,” said Arbroath, “my noble kinsmen, 
and brave men-tenants, we will see which will first reach 
the post of danger. For God and Queen Mary ! ” 

“ Ill-omened haste and most unhappy strife,” said the 
Abbot, who saw them and their followers rush hastily and 
emulously to ascend the height without waiting till their 
men were placed in order. “ And you, gentlemen,” he 
continued, addressing Roland and Seyton, who were each 
about to follow those who hastened thus disorderly to the 
conflict, “will you leave the Queen’s person unguarded ?” 

“ Oh, leave me not, gentlemen ! ” said the Queen — “ Ro- 
land and Seyton, do not leave me— there are enough of 
arms to strike in this fell combat— withdraw not those to 
whom I trust for my safety.” 

“We may not leave her Grace,” said Roland, looking 
at Seyton, and turning his horse. 

“ I ever looked when thou wouldst find out that,” re- 
joined the fiery youth. 

Roland made no answer, but bit his lip till the blood 
came, and spurring his horse up to the side of Catherine 


THE ABBOT. 


413 

Seyton’s palfrey, he whispered in a low voice, “ I never 
thought to have done aught to deserv^e you ; but this day 
I have heard myself upbraided with cowardice, and my 
sword remained still sheathed, and all for the love of you ’’ 
There is madness among us all,” said the damsel; 
“ my father, my brother, and you, are all alike bereft of 
reason. Ye should think only of this poor Queen, and 
you are all inspired by your own absurd jealousies — The 
monk is the only soldier and man of sense amono'st you 
all. My Lord Abbot,” she cried aloud, “ were it i?ot bet- 
ter we should draw to the westward and wait the event 
that God shall send us, instead of remaining here in the 
highway, endangering the Queen’s person and cumbering 
the troops in their advance ? ” 

“You say well, my daughter,” replied the Abbot ; “ had 
we but one to guide us where the Queen’s person may be 
in safety — Our nobles hurry to the conflict without cast- 
ing a thought on the very cause of the war.” 

“ Follow me,” said a knight, or man-at-arms, well 
! mounted, and attired completely in black armor, but hav- 
ing the visor of his helmet closed, and bearing no crest 
on his helmet, or device upon his shield. 

“We will follow no stranger,” said the Abbot, “without 
some warrant of his truth.” 

“I arn a stranger and in your hands,” said the horse- 
man ; “if you wish to know more of me, the Queen her- 
self will be your warrant” ^ 

The Queen had remained fixed to the spot as if disabled 
by fear, yet mechanically smiling, bowing, and waving her 
hand, as banners were lowered and spears depressed be- 
fore her, while, emulating the strife betwixt Seyton and 
Arbroath, band on band pressed forward their march to- 
ward the enemy. Scarce, however, had the black rider 
whispered something in her ear than she assented to what 
he said ; and when he spoke aloud, and with an air of 
command, “Gentlemen, it is the Queen’s pleasure that 
you should follow me,” Mary uttered, with something like 
eagerness, the word “Yes.” 

All were in motion in an instant ; for the black horse- 
man, throwing off a sort of apathy of manner, which his 
first appearance indicated, spurred his horse to and fro, 
making him take such active bounds and short turns, as 
showed the rider master of the animal ; and getting the 
Queen’s little retinue in some order for marching, he led 
them to the left, directing his course toward a castle, 


414 


THE ABBOT. 


which, crowning a gentle yet t minence, pre- 

sented an extensive view over the country beneath, and in 
particular commanded a view of those heights whicli both 
armies hastened to occupy, and which it was now apparent 
must almost instantly be the scene of struggle and dispute. 

“Yonder towers,” said the Abbot, questioning the sable 
horseman, “to whom do they belong? — and are they now 
in the hands of friends ? ” 

“They are untenanted,” replied the stranger, “or, at 
least, they have no hostile inmates. But urge these 
youths. Sir Abbot, to make more haste — this is but an 
evil time to satisfy their idle curiosity, by peering out 
upon the battle in which they are to take no share.” 

“ The worse luck mine,” said Henry Seyton, who over- 
heard him ; “ I would rather be under my father’s banner 
at this moment than be made Chamberlain of Holyrood, 
for this my present duty of peaceful ward well and pa- 
tiently discharged.” 

“Your place under your father’s banner will shortly be 
right dangerous,” said Roland Avenel, who, pressing his 
horse toward the westward, had still his look reverted to 
the armies ; “ for I see yonder body of cavalry, which 
presses from the eastward, will reach the village ere Lord 
Seyton can gain it.” 

“They are but cavalry,” said Seyton, looking atten- 
tively ; “ they cannot hold the village without shot of 
arquebuse.” 

“Look more closely,” said Roland ; “you will see that 
each of these horsemen who advance so rapidly from Glas- 
gow, carries a footman behind him.” 

“Now, by Heaven, he speaks well ! ” said the black cav- 
alier; “one of you two must go carry the news to Lord 
Seyton and Lord Arbroath, that they hasten not their 
horsemen on before the foot, but advance more regularly.” 

“ Be that my errand,” said Roland, “ for I first marked 
the stratagem of the enemy.” 

“ But, by your leave,” said Seyton, “yonder is my father’s 
banner engaged, and it best becomes me to go to the res- 
cue.” 

“ I will stand by the Queen’s decision,” said Roland 
Avenel. 

“ What new appeal ? — what new quarrel?” said Queen 
Mary — “Are there not in yonder dark host enemies enough 
to Mary Stuart, but must her very friends turn enemies 
to each other ? ” 


THE ABBOT. 


415 

“ Nay, madam,” said Roland, “the young master of Sey- 
ton and I did but dispute who should leave your person to 
do a most needful message to the host. He thought his 
rank entitled him, and I deemed that the person of least 
consequence, being myself, were better perilled” 

“ Not so,” said the Queen ; “ if one must leave me. be it 
Seyton.” 

Henry Seyton bowed till the white plumes on his helmet 
mixed with the flowing mane of his gallant war-horse then 
placed himself firm in the saddle, shook his lance aloft 
with an air of triumph and determination, and striking his 
horse with the spurs, made toward his father’s banner, 
which was still advancing up the hill, and dashed his steed 
over every obstacle that occurred in his headlong path. 

“ My brother ! my father !” exclaimed Catherine, with 
an expression of agonized apprehension — “ they are in the 
midst of peril, and I in safety ! ” 

“Would to God,” said Roland, “that I were with them, and 
could ransom every drop of their blood by two of mine ! ” 

“ Do I not know thou dost wish it ?” said Catherine— 
“ Can a woman say to a man what I have well-nigh said to 
thee, and yet think that he could harbor fear or faintness 
of heart ?— There is that in yon distant sound of approach- 
ing battle that pleases me even while it affrights me. I 
would I were a man, that I might feel that stern delight, 
without the mixture of terror ! ’’ 

“ Ride up, ride up. Lady Catherine Seyton,” cried the 
Abbot, as they still swept on at a rapid pace, and were now 
close beneath the walls of the castle — “ ride up, and aid 
Lady Fleming to support the Queen — she gives way more 
and more.” 

They halted and lifted Mary from the saddle, and were 
about to support her toward the castle, when she said 
faintly, “ Not there — not there — these walls will I never 
enter more ! ” , 

“Be a Queen, madam,” said the Abbot, “and forget that 
you are a woman.” 

“Oh, I must forget much, much more,” answered the 
unfortunate Mary, in an undertone, “ere I can look with 
steady eyes on these well-known scenes ! — I must forget 
the days which I spent here as the bride of the lost — the 
murdered” 

“ This is the Castle of Crookstone,” * said the Lady 


* See Note O. Battle of Langsid». 


4i6 


THE ABBOT. 


Fleming, in which the Queen held her first court after 
she was married to Darnley.” 

“ Heaven,” said the Abbot, ‘‘thy hand is upon us !— Bear 
yet up, madam— your foes are the foes of Holy Church, 
and God will this day decide whether Scotland shall be 
Catholic or heretic.” 

A heavy and continued fire of cannon and musketry bore 
a tremendous burden to his words, and seemed far nfore 
than they to recall the spirits of the Queen. 

“ To yonder tree,” she said, pointing to a yew-tree which 
grew on a small mount close to the castle ; “ I know it well 
— from thence you may see a prospect wide as from the 
peaks of SchehaUion.” 

And freeing herself from her assistants, she walked with 
a determined, yet somewhat wild step, up to the stem of 
the noble yew. The Abbot, Catherine, and Roland Avenel 
followed her, while Lady Fleming kept back the inferior 
persons of her train. The black horseman also followed 
the Queen, waiting on her as closely as the shadow upon 
the light, but ever remaining at the distance of two or 
three yards — he folded his arms on his bosom, turned his 
back to the battle, and seemed solely occupied by gazing 
on Mary through the bars of his closed visor. The Queen 
regarded him not, but fixed her eyes upon the spreading 

“Ay, fair and stately tree,” she said, as if at the sight of 
it she had been rapt away from the present scene, and had 
overcome the horror which had oppressed her at the first 
approach to Crookstone, “ there thou standest, gay and 
goodly as ever, though thou hearest the sounds ofVar, in- 
stead of the vows of love. All is gone since I last greeted 
thee— love and lover— vows and vower— king and kingdom 
—How goes the field, my Lord Abbot ?— with us, I trust— 
yet what but evil can Mary’s eyes witness from this spot?” 

Her attendants ^gerly bent their eyes on the field of 
battle, but could discover nothing more than that it was 
obstinately contested. The small enclosures and cottage 
gardens in the village, of which they had a full and com- 
manding view, and which shortly before lay, with their 
lines of sycamore and ash trees, so still and quiet in the 
mild light of a May sun, were now each converted into a 
line of fire, canopied by smoke ; and the sustained and 
constant report of the musketry and cannon, mingled with 
the shouts of meeting combatants, showed that as yet 
neither party had given ground. 


THE ABBOT. 


417 


,. here— not here,” said the unfortunate Oueen • 

murh^fo°' ’t!^’ °‘' P’’®'' silence— my mind is too 

much torn between the past and the present, to dare to ap- 
proach the heavenly throne— Or, if we will pray, be it for 
one whose fondest affections have been her greafest crimes 
and who has ceased to be a queen, only befause she was a 
deceived and a tender-hearted woman ” 

“Were it not well ” said Roland, “that I rode somewhat 
nearer the hosts, and saw the fate of the day ? ” 

“ Do so in the name of God,” said the Abbot : “ for if 
our friends are scattered, our flight must be hasty— but 
beware thou approach not too nigh the conflict ; there is 
thine own life depends on thy safe return.” 

Oh, go not too nigh,” said Catherine ; “ but fail 
^hemselve^’^^''' Seytons fight, and how they bear 


Fear nothing, I will be on my guard,” said Roland 
Avenel ; and without waiting farther answer, rode toward 
the scene of conflict, keeping, as he rode, the higher and 
unenclosed ground, and ever looking cautiously around 
nim, tor fear of involving himself in some hostile party. 
As he approached, the shots rung sharp and more sharply 
on his ear, the shouts came wilder and wilder, and he felt 
that thick beating of the heart, that mixture of natural ap- 
prehension, intense curiosity, and anxiety for the dubious 
event, which even the bravest experience when they ap- 
proach alone to a scene of interest and of danger. 

At length he drew so close, that from a bank, screened 
by bushes and underwood, he could distinctly see where 
the struggle was most keenly maintained. This was in a 
hollow way, leading to the village, up which the Queen’s 
vanguard had marched, with more hasty courage than well- 
ad vised conduct, for the purpose of possessing themselves 
of that post of advantage. They found their scheme an- 
ticipated, and the hedges and enclosures already occupied 
by the enemy, led by the celebrated Kirkaldy of Grange 
and the Earl of Morton ; and not small was the loss which 
they sustained while struggling forward to come to close 
with the men-at-arms on the other side. But, as the 
Queen’s followers were chiefly noblemen and barons, with 
their kinsmen and followers, they had pressed onward, 
27 


4i8 


THE ABBOT, 


contemning obstacles and danger, and had, when Roland 
arrived on the ground, met hand to hand at the gorge of 
the pass with the Regent’s vanguard, and endeavored to 
bear them out of the village at the spear-point ; while their 
foes, equally determined to keep the advantage which they 
had attained, struggled with the like obstinacy to drive 
back the assailants. 

Both parties were on foot, and armed in proof ; so that, 
when the long lances of the front ranks were fixed in each 
other’s shields, corselets, and breastplates, the struggle re- 
sembled that of two bulls, who, fixing their frontlets hard 
against each other, remain in that posture for hours, until 
the superior strength or obstinacy of the one compels the 
other to take to flight, or bears him down to the earth. 
Thus, locked together in the deadly struggle, which swayed 
slowly to and fro, as one or other party gained the advan- 
tage, those who fell were trampled on alike by friends and 
foes ; those whose weapons were broken, retired from the 
front rank, and had their place supplied by others ; while 
the rearward ranks, unable otherwise to share in the com- 
bat, fired their pistols, and hurled their daggers, and the 
points and truncheons of the broken weapons, like javelins 
against the enemy. 

“ God and the Queen ! ” resounded from the one party ; 
“ God and the King ! ” thundered from the other ; while, 
in the name of their sovereign, fellow-subjects on both 
sides shed each other’s blood, and, in the name of their 
Creator, defaced his image. Amid the tumult were of- 
ten heard the voices* of the captains, shouting their 
commands ; of leaders and chiefs, crying their gath- 
ering words; of groans and shrieks from the falling and 
the dying. 

The strife had lasted nearly an hour. The strength of 
both parties seemed exhausted ; but their rage was un- 
abated, and their obstinacy unsubdued, when Roland, who 
turned eye and ear to all around him, saw a column of in- 
fantry, headed by a few horsemen, wheel round the base 
of the bank where he had stationed himself, and, levelling 
their long lances, attack the flank of the Queen’s van- 
guard, closely engaged as they were in conflict on their 
front. The very first glance showed him that the leader 
who directed this movement was the Knight of Avenel, his 
ancient master ; and the next convinced him that its effects 
would be decisive. The result of the attack of fresh and 
unbroken forces upon the flank of those already wearied 


the abbot. 


419 


with a long and obstinate struggle, was, indeed, instanta- 
neous. 

The column of the assailants, which had hitherto shown 
one dark, dense, and united line of helmets, surmounted 
with plumage, was at once broken and hurled in confusion 
down the hill, which they had so long endeavored to gain. 
In vain were the leaders heard calling upon their followers 
to stand to the combat, and seen personally resisting 
when all resistance was evidently vain. They were slain, or 
felled to the earth, or hurried backwards by the mingled 
tide of flight and pursuit. What were Roland’s feelings 
on beholding the rout, and feeling that all that remained 
for him was to turn bridle, and endeavor to ensure the 
safety of the Queen’s person ! Yet, keen as his grief and 
shame might be, they were both forgotten, when, almost 
close beneath the bank which he occupied, he saw Henry 
Seyton forced away from his own party in the tumult 
covered with dust and blood, and defending himself des- 
perately against several of the enemy who had gathered 
around him, attracted by his gay armor. Roland paused 
not a moment, but pushing his steed down the bank, leaped 
him among the hostile party, dealt three or four blows 
among them, which struck down two, and made the rest 
stand aloof ; then, reaching Seyton his hand, he exhorted 
him to seize fast on his horse’s mane. 

“We live or die together this day,” said he ; “ keep but 
fast hold till we are out of the press, and then my horse is 
yours.” 

Seyton heard, and exerted his remaining strength, and, 
by their joint efforts, Roland brought him out of danger] 
and behind the spot from whence he had witnessed the 
disastrous conclusion of the fight. But no sooner were 
they under shelter of the trees, than Seyton let go his hold, 
and, in spite of Roland’s efforts to support him, fell at 
length on the turf. “Trouble yourself no more with me,” 
he said ; “ this is my first and my last battle — and I have al- 
ready seen too much to wish to see the close. Hasten to 
save the Queen— and commend me to Catherine — she will 
never more be mistaken for me nor I for her — the last 
sword-stroke has made an eternal distinction.” 

“Let me aid you to mount my horse,” said Roland, 
eagerly, “ and you may yet be saved— I can find my own 
way on foot — turn but my horse’s head westward, and he 
will carry you fleet and easy as the wind.” 

“ I will never mount steed more,” said the youth ; “fare- 


420 


THE ABBOJ'. 


•well — I love thee better dying, than ever I thought to have 
done while in life — I would that old man’s blood were not 
on my hand ! — Sancte Benedicte^ ora pro me ! Stand not to 
look on a dying man, but haste to save the Queen ! ” 

These words were spoken with the last effort of his 
voice, and scarce were they uttered ere the speaker was no 
more. Tiiey recalled Roland to a sense of the duty which 
he had well-nigh forgotten, but they did not reach his ears 
only. 

“ The Queen — where is the Queen ? ” said Halbert 
Glendinning, who, followed by two or three horsemen, ap- 
peared at the instant. Roland made no answer, but, turn- 
ing his horse, and confiding in his speed, gave him at 
once rein and spur, and rode over height and hollow to- 
ward the Castle of Crookstone. More heavily armed, and 
mounted upon a horse of less speed. Sir Halbert Glendin- 
ning followed with couched lance, calling out as he rode, 
“Sir with the holly-branch, halt, and show your right to 
to bear that badge — fly not thus cowaVdly, nor dishonor the 
cognizance thou deservest not to wear ! Halt, sir coward, 
or, by Heaven, I will strike thee -with my lance on the back, 
and slay thee like a dastard — I am the Knight of Avenel — I 
am Halbert Glendinning.” 

But Roland, who had no purpose of encountering his 
old master, and who, besides, knew the Queen’s safety de- 
pended on his making the best speed he could, answered 
not a word to the defiances and reproaches which Sir Hal- 
bert continued to throw out against him ; but making the 
best use of his spurs, rode yet harder than before, and had 
gained about a hundred yards upon his pursuer, when, 
coming near to the yew-tree where he had left the Queen, 
he saw them already getting to horse, and cried out as loud 
as he could, “Foes! foes 1 — ride for it, fair ladies. Brave 
gentlemen, do your devoir to protect them ! ” 

So saying he wheeled his horse, and avoiding the shock 
of Sir Halbert Glendinning, charged one of that Knight’s 
followers, who was nearly on a line with him, so rudely 
with his lance, that he overthrew horse and man. He then 
drew his sword and attacked the second, wliile the black 
man-at-arms, throwing himself in the way of Glendinning, 
they rushed on each other so fiercely that both horses were 
overthrown, and the riders lay rolling on the plain. Neither 
was able to arise, for the black horseman was pierced 
through with Glendinning’s lance, and the Knight of 
Avenel, oppressed with the weight of his own horse, and 


THE ABBOT. 


421 


sorely bruised besides, seemed in little better plicrht than 
he whom he had mortally wounded. 

\ield thee, Sir Knight of Avenel, rescue or no rescue ” 
said Roland, who had put a second antagonist out of con- 
dition to combat, and hastened to prevent Glendinnine 
from renewing the conflict 

“ I may not choose but yield,” said Sir Halbert, “ since 
I can no longer fight ; but it shames me to speak such a 
word to a coward like thee ! ” 

Call me not coward,” said Roland, lifting his visor, and 
helping his prisoner to rise, “since but for old kindness at 
thy hands, and yet more at thy lady’s, I had met thee as a 
brave man should. 

“ The favorite page of my wife ! ” said Sir Halbert, aston- 
ished ; “ Ah ! wretched boy, I have heard of thy treason 
at Lochleven.” 

“ Reproach him not, my brother,” said the Abbot ; “ he 
was but an agent in the hands of Heaven.” 

“ lo horse, to horse !” said Catherine Seyton ; “mount 
and begone, or we are all lost. I see our gallant army 
flying for many a league— To horse, my Lord Abbot— To 
horse, Roland — My gracious liege, to horse ! Ere this we 
should have ridden many a mile.” 

“ Look on these features,” said Mary, pointing to the dy- 
ing knight, who had been unhelmed by some compassion- 
ate hand ; “look there, and tell me if she who ruins all who 
love her ought to fly a foot farther to save her wretched life ! ” 

The reader must have long anticipated the discovery 
which the Queen’s feelings had made before her eyes con- 
firmed it. It was the features of the unhappy 'George 
Douglas, on which death was stamping his mark. 

“ Look — look at him well,” said the Queen, “thus has it 
been with all who loved Mary Stuart ! The royalty of 
Francis, the wit of Chastelar, the power and gallantry of 
the gay Gordon, the melody of Rizzio, the portly form and 
youthful grace of Darnley, the bold address and courtly 
manners of Bothwell — and now the deep-devoted passion 
of the noble Douglas — naught, could save them — they 
looked on the wretched Mary, and to have loved her was 
crime enough to deserve early death ! No sooner had the 
victims formed a kind thought of me than the poisoned 
cup, the axe and block, the dagger, the mine, were ready 
to punish them for casting away affection on such a wretch 
as I am ! Importune me not — I will fly no farther— I can 
die but once, and I will die here ! ” 


422 


THE ABBO'E. 


While she spoke, her tears fell fast on the face of the 
dying man, who continued to fix his eyes on her with ah 
eagerness of passion, which death itself could hardly sub- 
due. “Mourn not for me,” he said, faintly, “but care 
for your own safety — I die in mine armor as a Douglas 
should, and I die pitied by Mary Stuart ! ” 

He expired with these words, and without withdrawing 
his eyes from her face ; and the Queen, whose heart was of 
that soft and gentle mould, which in domestic life, and 
with a more suitable partner than Darnley, might have 
made her happy, remained weeping by the dead man, 
until recalled to herself by the Abbot, who found it neces- 
sary to use a style of unusual remonstrance. “We also, 
madam,” he said, “ we, your Grace’s devoted followers, 
have friends and relatives to weep for. I leave a brother 
in imminent jeopardy — the husband of the Lady Fleming 
— the father and brothers of the Lady Catherine, are all in 
yonder bloody field, slain, it is to be feared, or prisoners. 
We forget the fate of our own nearest and dearest, to wait 
on our Queen, and she is too much occupied with her own 
sorrows to give one thought to ours.” 

“ I deserve not your reproach, father,” said the Queen, 
checking her tears; “but I am docile to it — where must 
we go — what must we do ? ” 

“ We must fly, and that instantly,” said the Abbot ; 
“ whither is not so easily answered, but we may dispute it 
upon the road — Lift her to her saddle, and set forward.” 

They set off accordingly — Roland lingered a moment, to 
command the attendants of the Knight of Avenel to con- 
vey their master to the Castle of Crookstone, and to say 
that he demanded from him no other condition of liberty, 
than his word, that he and his followers would keep secret 
the direction in which the Queen fled. As he turned his 
rein to depart, the honest countenance of Adam Woodcock 
stared upon him with an expression of surprise, which at 
another time would have excited his hearty mirth. He had 
been one of the followers who had experienced the weight 
of Roland’s arm, and they now knew each other, Roland 
having put up his visor, and the good yeoman having 
thrown away his barret-cap, with the iron bars in front, 
that he might the more readily assist his master. Into this 
barret-cap, as it lay on the ground, Roland forgot not to 
drop a few gold pieces (fruits of the Queen’s liberality), and 


* Note O. Battle of Langside. 


THE ABBOT. 


423 


with a signal of kind recollection and enduring friendship 
he departed at full gallop to overtake the Queen, the dust 
raised by her train being already far down the hill. 

“ It is not fairy-money,” said honest Adam, weighing and 
handling the gold— “And it was Master Roland himself, 
that is a certain thing — the same open hand, and, by Our 
Lady!” (shrugging his shoulders)— “ the same ready fist! 

My Lady will hear of this gladly, for she mourns for him 
as if he were her son. And to see how gay he is ! But 
these light lads are as sure to be uppermost as the froth to 
be on the top of the quart-pot — Your man of solid parts re- 
mains ever a falconer.” So saying, he went to aid his com- 
rades, w'ho had now come up in greater numbers, to carry 
his master into the Castle of Crookstone. 


CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHTH. 

My native land, good-night ! 

Byron. 

Many a bitter tear was shed, during the hasty flight of 
Queen Mary, over fallen hopes, future prospects, and 
slaughtered friends. The deaths of the brave Douglas, and 
of the fiery but gallant young Seyton, seemed to affect the 
Queen as much as the fall from the throne, on which she 
had so nearly been again seated. Catherine Seyton de- 
voured in secret her owm grief, anxious to support the 
broken spirits of her mistress ; and the Abbot, bending his 
troubled thoughts upon futurity, endeavored in vain to 
form some plan wLich had a shadow of hope. The spirit 
of young Roland — for he also mingled in the hasty debates 
held by the companions of the Queen’s flight — continued 
unchecked and unbroken. 

“Your Majesty,” he said, “has lost a battle — Your an- 
cestor, Bruce, lost seven successively, ere he sat trium- 
phant on the Scottish throne, and proclaimed with the voice 
of a victor, in the field of Bannockburn the independence 
of his country. Are not these heaths, which we may trav- 
erse at will, better than the locked, guarded, and lake- 
moated Castle of Lochleven ? — We are free — in that one 
w^ord there is comfort for all our losses.” 

He struck a bold note, but the heart of Mary made no 
response. 


424 


THE ABBOT. 


“ Better,” she said, “I had still been in Lochleven, than 
seen the slaughter made by rebels among the subjects who 
offered themselves to death for my sake. Speak not to me 
of farther efforts — they would only cost the lives of you, 
the friends who recommend them ! I would not again un- 
dergo what I felt, when I saw from yonder mount the 
swords of the fell horsemen of Morton raging among the 
faithful Seytons and Hamiltons, for their loyalty to their 
Queen — I would not again feel what I felt when Douglas’s 
life-blood stained my mantle for his love to Mary Stuart 
— not to be empress of all that Britain’s seas enclose. Find 
for me some place where I can hide my unhappy head, 
which brings destruction on all who love it — it is the last 
favor that Mary asks of her faithful followers.” 

In this dejected mood, but still pursuing her flight with 
unabated rapidity, the unfortunate Mary, after having been 
joined by Lord Herries and a few followers, at length halt- 
ed, for the first time, at the Abbey of Dundrennan, nearly 
sixty miles distant from the field of battle. In this remote 
quarter of Galloway, the Reformation not having yet been 
strictly.enforced against the monks, a few still lingered in 
their cells unmolested ; and the Prior, with tears and rev- 
erence, received the fugitive Queen at the gate of his con- 
vent. 

“ I bring you ruin, my good father,” said the Queen, as 
she was lifted from her palfrey. 

“ It is welcome,” said the Prior, “ if it comes in the train 
of duty.” 

Placed on the ground, and supported by her ladies, the 
Queen looked for an instant at her palfrey, which, jaded 
and drooping its head, seemed as if it mourned the dis- 
tresses of its mistress. 

“ Good Roland,” said the Queen, whispering, “ let Rosa- 
belle be cared for — ask thy heart, and it will tell thee why 
I make this trifling request even in this awful hour.” 

She was conducted to her apartment, and in the hurried 
consultation of her attendants, the fatal resolution of the 
retreat to England was finally adopted. In the morning it 
received her approbation, |ind a messenger was despatched 
to the English warden, to pray him for safe-conduct and 
hospitality, on the part of the Queen of Scotland. On the 
next day the Abbot Ambrose walked in the garden of the 
Abbey with Roland, to whom he expressed his disappro- 
bation of the course pursued. “ It is madness and ruin,” 
he said ; “ better commit herself to the savage Highlanders 


THE ABBOT. 


425 

or wild Bordermen, than to the faith of Elizabeth. A 
woman to a rival woman— a presumptive successor to the 
keeping of a jealous and childless Queen !— Roland Har- 
ries IS true and loyal, but his counsel has ruined his mis- 
tress. 

“Ay, ruin follows us ever>^where,” said an old man, with 
a spade in his hand, and dressed like a lay-brother of 
whose presence, in the vehemence of his exclamation, \he 
Abbot had not been aware — “ Gaze not on me with such 
U’onder !— I am he who was the Abbot Boniface at Kenna- 
quhair, who was the gardener Blinkhoolie at Lochleven 
hunted round to the place in which I served my novitiate^ 
and now ye are come to rouse me up again ! — A weary life 
I have had for one to whom peace was ever the dearest 
blessing ! ” 

“We will soon rid you of our company, good father" 
said the Abbot ; “ and the Queen will, I fear, trouble your 
retreat no more." 

“Nay, you said as much before," said the querulous old 
man, “ and yet I was put forth from Kinross, and pillaged 
by troopers on the road. — They took from me the certifi- 
cate that you wot of— that of the Baron— ay, he was a moss- 
trooper like themselves— You asked me of it, and I could 
never find it, but they found it — it showed the marriage of 
— of — my memory fails me — Now see how men differ! 
Father Nicholas would have told you an hundred tales of 

the Abbot Ingelram, on whose soul God have mercy! 

He was, I warrant you, fourscore and six, and I am not 

more than — let me see " 

“ Was not Avenel the name you seek, my good father ? " 
said Roland, impatiently, yet moderating his tone for fear 
of alarming or offending the infirm old man. 

“Ay, right— Avenel, Julian Avenel— You are perfect in 
the name — I kept all the special confessions, judging it 
held with my vow to do so — I could not find it when my 
successor, Ambrosius, spoke on’t— but the troopers found 
it, and the Knight who commanded the party struck his 
breast, till the target clattered like an empty watering-can." 

“Saint Mary ! " said the Abbot, “ in whom could such a 
paper excite such interest ? What was the appearance of 
the Knight, his arms, his colors ? ” 

“Ye distract me with your questions — I dared hardly 
look at him — they charged me with bearing letters for the 
Queen, and searched my mail — This was all along of your 
doings at Lochleven." 


426 


THE ABBOT. 


“ I trust in God,” said the Abbot to Roland, who stood 
beside him, shivering and trembling with impatience, the 
paper has fallen into the hands of my brother — I heard he 
had been with his followers on the scout betwixt Stirling 
and Glasgow. — Bore not the Knight a holly-bough on his 
helmet ? — Canst thou not remember ?” 

“ Oh, remember — remember,” said the old man pettishly ; 
“ Count as many years as I do, if your plots wdll let you, 
and see what and how much you remember. — Why, I scarce 
remember the pearmains which I grafted here with my 
own hands some fifty years since.” 

At this moment a bugle sounded loudly from the 
beach. 

“It is the death-blast to Queen Mary’s royalty,” said 
Ambrosius ; “ the English warden’s answer has been re- 
ceived, favorable doubtless, for when was the door of the 
trap closed against the prey which it was set for ? — Droop 
not, Roland — this matter shall be sifted to the bottom — 
but we must not now leave the Queen — follow me — let us 
do our duty, and trust the issue with God — Farewell, good 
father — I will visit thee again soon.” 

He was about to leave the garden, followed by Roland, 
with half-reluctant steps. The Ex-Abbot resumed his 
spade. 

“ I could be sorry for these men,” he said, “ay, and for 
that poor Queen, but what avail earthly sorrows to a mail 
of fourscore ? — and it is a rare dropping morning for the 
early cole wort.” 

“ He is stricken with age,” said Ambrosius, as he dragged 
Roland down to the sea-beach ; “we must let him take his 
time to collect himself — nothing now can be thought on 
but the fate of the Queen.” 

They soon arrived where she stood, surrounded by her 
little train, and by her side the Sheriff of Cumberland, a 
gentleman of the house of Lowther, richly dressed and ac- 
companied by soldiers. The aspect of the Queen exhibited 
a singular mixture of alacrity and reluctance to depart, 
tier language and gestures spoke hope and consolation to 
her attendants, and she seemed desirous to persuade even 
herself that the step she adopted was secure, and that the 
assurance she had received of kind reception was altogether 
satisfactory; but her quivering lip, and unsettled eye, be- 
trayed at once her anguish at departing from Scotland, and 
her fears of confiding herself to the doubtful faith of Eng;- 
land. 


TIFK ABJJOT. 


427 

“Welcome, my Lord Abbot,” she said, speaking to Am- 
brosius, “and you, Roland Avenel, we have joyful news 
for you— our loving sister’s officer proffers us, in her name, 
a safe asylum from the rebels who have driven us from our 
home— only it grieves me we must here part from you for 
a short space.” 

“Part from us, madam!” said the Abbot. “Is your 
\\^lcome in England, then, to commence with tiie 
abridgment of your train, and dismissal of your coun- 
sellors?” 

“Take it not thus, good Father,” said Mary; “the War- 
den and the Sheriff, faithful servants of our Royal Sistq,r, 
deem it necessary to obey her instructions in the present 
case, even to the letter, and can only take upon them to 
admit me with my female attendants. An express will in- 
stantly be despatched from London, assigning me a place 
of residence ; and I will speedily send to all oi you when- 
ever my Court shall be formed.” 

“Your Court formed in England! and while Elizabeth 
lives and reigns ?” said the Abbot— “ that will be when we 
shall see two suns in one heaven !” 

“ Do not think so,” replied the Queen ; “ we are well as- 
sured of our sister’s good faith. Elizabeth loves fame— 
and not all that she has won by her power and her wisdom 
will equal that which she will acquire by extending her 
hospitality to a distressed sister !— not all that she may 
hereafter do of good, wise, and great, would blot out the 

reproach of abusing our confidence. Farewell, my page 

now my knight— farewell for a brief season. I will dry the 
tears of Catherine, or I will weep with her till neither of 
us can weep longer.” She held out her hand to Roland, 
who, flinging himself on his knees, kissed it with much 
emotion. He was about to render the same homage to 
Catherine, when the Queen, assuming an air of sprightli- 
ness, said, “Her lips, thou foolish bov ! and, Catherine, 
coy it not— these English gentlemen should see, that, even 
in our cold clime, Beauty knows how to reward Bravery 
and Fidelity ! ” 

“We are not now to learn the force of Scottish beauty, 
or the mettle of Scottish valor,” said the Sheriff of Cum- 
berland, courteously— “ I would it were in my power to 
bid these attendants upon her who is herself the mistress 
of Scottish beauty, as welcome to England as my poor 
cares would make them. But our Queen’s orders are 
positive in case of such an emergence, and they must not 


428 


THE ABBOT. 


be disputed by her subject. May I remind your Majesty 
that the tide ebbs fast ? ” 

Tlie Sheritf took the Queen’s liand, and she had already 
placed her foot on the gangway, by which she was to enter 
the skiff, when the Abbot, starting from a trance of grief 
and astonishment at the words of" the Sheriff, rushed into 
the water, and seized upon her mantle. 

“ She foresaw it ! — She foresaw it ! ” — he exclaimed — 
‘‘she foresaw your flight into her realm; and, foreseeing 
it, gave orders you should be thus received. Blinded, de- 
ceived, doomed Princess! your fate is' sealed when you 
quit this strand. Queen of Scotland, thou shalt not leave 
thine heritage !” he continued, holding a still firmer grasp 
upon her mantle ; “true men shall turn rebels to thy will, 
that they may save thee from captivity or death. Fear not 
the bills and bows whom that gay man has at his beck — we 
will withstand him by force. Oh, for the arm of my war- 
like brother ! Roland Avenel, draw thy sword ! ” 

The Queen stood irresolute and frightened ; one foot 
upon the plank, the other on the sand of her native shore, 
which she was quitting for ever. 

“What needs this violence. Sir Priest?” said the Slierifl 
of Cumberland. “ I came hither at your Queen’s com- 
mand, to do her service ; and I will depart^^ at her least 
order, if she'rejects such aid as I can offer. No marvel is 
it if our Queen’s wisdom foresaw that such chance as this 
might happen amidst the turmoils of your unsettled State ; 
and, while willing to afford fair hospitality to her Royal 
Sister, deemed it wise to prohibit the entrance of a broken 
army of her followers into the English frontier.” 

“ You hear,” said Queen Mary, gently unloosing her 
robe from the Abbot’s grasp, “that we exercise full liberty 
of choice in leaving this shore ; and, questionless, the 
choice will remain free to us in going to France, or return- 
ing to our own dominions, as we shall determine— Besides, 
it is too late— Your blessing. Father, and God speed thee ! ” 
“May He have mercy on thee. Princess, and speed thee 
also ! ’ said the Abbot, retreating. “ But my soul tells me 
I look on thee for the last time ! ” 

The sails were hoisted, the oars were plied, the vessel 
went freshly on her way through the firth, which divides 
the shores of Cumberland from those of Galloway ; but 
not till the vessel diminished to the size of a child’s frigate, 
did the doubtful, and dejected, and dismissed followers of 
the Queen cease to linger on the sands; and long, long 


THE ABBOT. 


429 

could they discern the kerchief of Marj', as she waved the 
oft-repeated signal ot adieu to her faithful adherents, and 
to the shores of Scotland. ’ 


If good tidings of a private nature could have consoled 
Roland for parting with his mistress, and for the distresses 
of his sovereign, he received such comfort some days sub- 
sequent to the Queen’s leaving Dundrennan. A breathless 
post— no other than Adam Woodcock— brought despatches 
Irom Sir Hubert Glendinning to the Abbot, whom he 
found with Roland, still residing at Dundrennan, and in 
vain torturing Boniface with fresh interrogations. The 
packet l^re an earnest invitation to his brother to make 
Avenel Castle for a time his residence. “The clemency 
of ^e Regent,” said the writer, “ has extended pardon both 
to Roland and to you, upon condition of your remaining a 
time under my wardship. And I have that to communi- 
cate respecting the parentage of Roland, which not only 
you will willingly listen to, but which will be also found to 
afford me, as the husband of his nearest relative, some 
interest in the future course of his life.” 

The Abbot read this letter, and paused, as if considerino- 
what were best for him to do. Meanwhile, Woodcock 
took Roland aside, and addressed him as follows “ Now 
look, Mr. Roland, that you do not let any papistrie non- 
sense lure either the priest or you from the right quarry 
See you, you ever bore yourself as a bit of a gentleman.* 
Read that, and thank God that threw old Abbot Boniface 
in our way, as two of the Seyton’s men were conveying 
hirn towards Dundrennan here. — ^Ve searched him for in- 
telligence concerning that fair exploit of yours at Loch- 
leven, that has cost many a man his life, and me a set of 
sore bones— and we found what is better for your purpose 
than ours.” j v 

paper which he gave, was, indeed, an attestation by 
Father Philip, subscribing himself unworthy Sacristan, 
and brother of the House of Saint Mary’s, stating, “that 
under a vow of secrecy he had united, in the holy sacra- 
ment of marriage, Julian Avenel and Catherine Grseme ; 
but that Julian haying repented of his union, he. Father 
Philip, had been sinfully prevailed on by him to conceal 
and disguise the same, according to a complot devised be- 
twixt him and the said Julian Avenel, whereby the poor 


430 


THE ABBOT. 


damsel was induced to believe that the ceremony had been 
performed by one not in holy orders, and having no au- 
thority to that effect. Which sinful concealment the 
undersigned conceived to be the cause why he was aban- 
doned to the misguiding of a water-fiend, whereby he had 
been under a spell, which obliged him to answer every 
question, even touching the most solemn matters, wfitli 
idle snatches of old songs, besides being sorely afflicted 
with rheumatic pains ever after. Wherefore he had de- 
posited this testificate and confession, with the day and 
date of the said marriage, with his lawful superior Boni- 
face, Abbot of Saint Mary’s, sub sigillo confessionis.'* 

It appeared by a letter from Julian, folded carefully up 
with the certificate, that the Abbot Boniface had, in effect, 
bestirred himself in the affair, and obtained from the Baron 
a promise to avow his marriage ; but the death of both 
Julian and his injured bride, together with the Abbot’s 
resignation, his ignorance of the fate of their unhappy 
offspring, and above all, the good father’s listless and in- 
active disposition, had suffered the matter to become totally 
forgotten, until it was recalled by some accidental conver- 
sation with the Abbot Ambrosius concerning the fortunes 
of the Avenel family. At the request of his successor, the 
quondam Abbot made search for it ; but as he would re- 
ceive no assistance- in looking among the few records of 
spiritual experiences and important confessions, which he 
had conscientiously treasured, it might have remained for- 
ever hidden among them, but for the more active researches 
of Sir Halbert Glendinning. 

So that you are like to be heir of Avenel at last. 
Master Roland, after my lord and lady have gone to their 
place,” said Adam ; “ and as I have but one boon to ask, I 
trust you will not nick me wfith nay.” 

“Not if it be in my power to say yes, my trusty friend.” 

“ Why then, I must needs, if I live to see that day, keep 
on feeding the eyases with unwashed flesh,” said Wood- 
cock, sturdily, yet as if doubting the reception that his 
request might meet with. 

“Thou shalt feed them with what you list for me,” said 
Roland, laughing ; “ I am not many months older than 
when I left the Castle, but I trust I have gathered wit 
enough to cross no man of skill in his own vocation.” 

“Then I would not change places with the King’s fal- 
coner,” said Adam Woodcock, “nor with the Queen’s 
neither — but they say she will be mewed up and never 


THE ABBOT. 


43 


need one. — I see it grieves you to think of it, and I could 
grieve for company ; but what help for it ? — Fortune will 
fly her own flight, let a man hollo himself hoarse.” 

The Abbot and Roland journeyed to Avenel, where the 
former was tenderly received by his brother, while the 
lady wept for joy to find that in her favorite orphan she 
had protected the sole surviving branch of her own family. 
Sir Halbert Glendinning and his household were not a little 
surprised at the change which a brief acquaintance with 
the world had produced in their former inmate, and re- 
joiced to find in the pettish, spoiled, and presuming page, 
a modest and unassuming young man, too much ac- 
quainted with his own expectations and character to be 
hot or petulant in demanding the consideration which was 
readily and voluntarily yielded to him. The old Major- 
domo Wingate was the first to sing his praises, to which 
Mistress Lilias bore a loud echo, always hoping that God 
would teach him the true gospel. 

To the true gospel the heart of Roland had secretly long 
inclined, and the departure of the good Abbot for France, 
with the purpose of entering into some house of his order 
in that kingdom, removed his chief objection to renouncing 
the Catholic faith. Another might have existed in the 
duty which he owed to Magdalen Graeme, both by birth 
and from gratitude. But he learned, ere he had been long 
a resident in Avenel, that his grandmother had died at 
Cologne, in the performance of a penance too severe for 
her age, which she had taken upon herself in behalf of the 
Queen and Church of Scotland, so soon as she heard of 
the defeat at Langside. The zeal of the Abbot Ambrosius 
was more regulated ; but he retired into the Scottish con- 
vent of , and so lived there that the fraternity were 

inclined to claim for him the honors of canonization. But 
he guessed their purpose, and prayed them, on his death- 
bed, to do no honors to the body of one as sinful as them- 
selves ; but to send his body and his heart to be buried in 
Avenel burial-aisle, in the monastery of Saint Mar}'’s, that 
the last Abbot of that celebrated house of devotion might 
sleep among its ruins.* 

Long before that period arrived, Roland Avenel was 
wedded to Catherine Seyton, who, after two years’ resi- 
dence with her unhappy mistress, was dismissed upon her 
being subjected to closer restraint than had been at first 


* Note P. Burial of the Abbot’s heart in the Avenel aisle. 


432 


THE ABBOT. 


exercised. She returned to her father’s house, and as 
Roland was acknowledged for the successor and lawful 
heir of the ancient house of Avenel, greatly increased as 
the estate was by the providence of Sir Halbert Glendin- 
ning, there occurred no objections to the match on the 
part of her family. Her mother was recently dead when 
she first entered the convent ; and her father, in the urn 
settled times which followed Queen Mary’s flight to Eno-- 
land, was not averse to an alliance with a youth who 
himself loyal to Queen Mary, still held some influence’ 
through means of Sir Halbert Glendinning, with the party 
in power. ^ ^ 

Roland and Catherine, therefore, were united, spite of 
their differing faiths ; and the White Lady, whose appari- 
tion had been infrequent when the house of Avenel seemed 
verging to extinction, was seen to sport by her haunted 
well with a zone of gold around her bosom as broad as 
the baldric of an earl. 


NOTES TO THE ABBOT. 


Note A, p. 8 . —Portraiture of Mary Stuart. 

[Speaking of the “Abbot,” Mr. Lockhart says — “ Whatever ground Sit 
\\ alter had been supposed to lose in the ‘ Monastery,’ part at least of it 
was regained by this tale, and especially by its most graceful and pathetic 
portraiture of Mary Stuart.” 

In a little book printed for private circulation, the late Chief-Commis- 
sioner, Adam of Blair- Adam, says — “The castle of Lochleven, renowned 
and attractive above all the others in my neighborhood, became an object 
of much increased attention, and a theme of constant conversation, after 
the Author of W^averley had, by his inimitable power of delineating char- 
acter — by his creative poetic fancy in representing scenes of varied interest 
and by the splendor of his romantic descriptions, infused a more diversi- 
fied and a deeper tone of feeling into the history of Queen Mary’s captivity 
and escape.”] 


Note B, p. 36. — Glendonwyne of Glendonwyne. 

This was a house of ancient descent and superior consequence, including 
persons who fought at Bannockburn and Otterburn, and closely connected 
by alliance and friendship with the great Earls of Douglas. The Knight 
in the story argues as most Scotsmen would do in his situation, for all of 
the same clan are popularly considered as descended from the same stock, 
and as having a right to the ancestral honor of the chief branch. This 
opinion, though sometimes ideal, is so strong even at this day of innovation, 
that it may be observed as a national difference between my countrymen 
and the English. If you ask an Englishman of good birth whether a per- 
son of the same name be connected with him, he answers (if hi dubio\ 
“No — he is a mere namesake.” Ask a similar question of a Scot (I mean 
a Scotsman), he replies — “ He is one of our clan; I daresay there is a re- 
lationship, though I do not know how distant.” The Englishman thinks 
of discountenancing a species of rivalry in society ; the Scotsman’s answer 
is grounded on the ancient idea of strengthening the clan. 

Note C, p. 78. — Cell of St. Cuthbert. 

I may here observe that this is entirely an ideal scene. Saint Cuthbert, a 
person of established sanctity, had, no doubt, several places of worship on 
the Borders, where he flourished whilst living ; but Tillmouth Chapel is 
the only one which bears some resemblance to the hermitage described in 
the text It has, indeed, a well famous for gratifying three wishes for 
every worshipper who shall quaff the fountain with sufficient ' belief in its 
28 


434 


NOTES TO THE ABBOT. 


efficacy. At this spot the Saint is said to liave landed in his stone coffin, 
in which he sailed down the Tweed from Melrose, and here the stone coffin 
long lay in evidence of the fact. The late Sir Francis Blake Delaval is 
said to have taken the exact measure of the coffin, and to have ascertained 
by hydrostatic principles that it might have actually swum. A profane 
farmer in the neighborhood announced his intention of converting this 
last bed of the Saint into a trough for his swine ; but the profanation was 
rendered impossible either by the Saint or by some pious votary in his be- 
half, for on the following morning the stone sarcophagus was found broken 
m two fragments. 

Tillmouth Chapel, with these points of resemblance, lies, however, in 
exactly the opposite direction, as regards Melrose, which the supposed cell 
ot Saint Cuthbert is said to have borne toward Kennaauhair. 

Note D, p. 90 . — Goss-hawk. 

The comparison is taken from some beautiful verses in an old ballad 
entitled Fause Foodrage, published in the Minstrelsy of the Scottish 
Border. A deposed queen, to preserve her infant son from the traitors 
T-.uf exchanges him with the female offspring of a 

taithtul friend, and goes on to direct the education of the children, and 
the private signals by which the parents are to hear news each of her own 
offspring. 

“ And you shall learn my gay goss-hawk 
Right well to breast a steed ; 

And so will I your turtle dow, 

As well to write and read. 

“ And ye shall learn my gay goss-hawk 
To wield both bow and brand ; 

And so will I your turtle dow 
To lay gowd with her hand. 

“ At kirk or market when we meet, 

We’ll dare make no avow, 

does my gay goss-hawk ? ’ 

Madame, how does my dow? ’ ” 


Note E, p. no. — C hapel of St. Bridget. 

This, like the cell of Saint Cuthbert, is an imaginary scene, but I took 
one or two ideas of the desolation of the interior from a story told me bv 
my father. In his youth— it may be near eighty years since, as he was 
iorn m 1729 he had occasion to visit an old lady who resided in a Border 
castle of coiiMderable renown. Only one very limited portion of the exten- 
sive rums sufficed for the accommodation of the inmates, and my father 
amused himself by wandering through the part that was untenanted. In 
a dining apartment, having a roof richly adorned with arches and drops 
there was deposited a large stack of hay, to which calves were helphig 

turnpike staircase, his greyhound ran up before him, and probably was the 

bJThl^f through a trap-door, or aperture 

in the stair, thus warning the owner of the danger of the ascent. As the 
dog continued howling from a great depth, my father got the old butler 
who alone knew most of the localities about the castle, to unl^k a sort of 
S Kill-buck was found safe and sound, the place being filled 

with the same commodity which littered the stalls of Augeas, and which 

had rendered the dog’s fall an easy one. ^ 


,V077':S 7'0 TJU'l ABBOT, 


435 


Note F, p. 125. — Abbot of Unreason. 

We learn from no less authority than that of Napoleon Bonaparte that 
there is but a single step between the sublime and ridiculous ; and it is a 
transition from one extreme to another, so very easy, that the vulgar of 
every degree are peculiarly captivated with it. Thus the inclination to 
laugh becomes uncontrollable, when the solemnity and gravity of time, 
place, and circumstances, render it peculiarly improper. Some species of 
general license, like that which inspired the ancient Saturnalia, or the 
modern Carnival, has been commonly indulged to the people at all times 
and in almost all countries. But it was, I think, peculiar to the Roman 
Catholic Church, that while they studied how to render their church rites 
imposing, and magnificent by all that pomp, music, architecture, and ex- 
ternal display could add to them, they nevertheless connived, upon special 
occasions, at the frolics of the rude vulgar, who, in almost all Catholic 
countries, enjoyed, or at least assumed, the privilege of making some Lord 
of the revels, who, under the name of the Abbot of Unreason, the Boy 
Bishop, or the President of Fools, occupied the churches, profaned the holy 
places by a mock imitation of the sacred rites, and sung indecent parodies 
on hymns of the church. The indifference of the clergy, even when their 
power was greatest, to the indecent exhibitions which they always tolerated, 
and sometimes encouraged, forms a strong contrast to the sensitiveness 
with which they regarded any serious attempt, by preaching or writing, to 
impeach any of the doctrines of the Church. It could only be compared 
to the singular apathy with which they endured, and often admired, the 
gross novels which Chaucer, Dunbar, Boccaccio, Bandello, and others, 
composed upon the bad morals of the clergy. It seems as if the church- 
men in both instances had endeavored to compromise with the laity, and 
allowed them occasionally to gratify their coarse humor by indecent satire, 
provided they would abstain from any grave question concerning the foun- 
dation of the doctrines on which was erected such an immense fabric of ec- 
clesiastical power. 

But the sports thus licensed assumed a very different appearance so soon 
as the Protestant doctrines began to prevail ; and the license which their 
forefathers had exercised in mere gayety of heart, and without the least in- 
tention of dishonoring religion by their frolics, were now persevered in by 
the common people as a mode of testifying their utter disregard for the 
Roman priesthood and its ceremonies. 

I may observe, for example, the case of an apparitor sent to Borthwick 
from the Primate of Saint Andrews to cite the lord of that castle, who was 
opposed by an Abbot of Unreason, at whose command the officer of the 
spiritual court was appointed to be ducked in a mill-dam, and obliged to 
eat up his parchment citation. 

The reader may be amused with the following whimsical details of this 
incident, which took place in the castle of Borthwick in the year 1547. It 
appears, that in consequence of a process betwixt Master George Hay de 
Minzeane and the Lord Borthwick, letters of excommunication had passed 
against the latter, on account of the contumacy of certain witnesses. Wil- 
liam Langlands, an apparitor or macer {hacularius) of the See of Saint 
Andrews, presented these letters to the curate of the church of Borthwick, 
requiring him to publish the same at the service of high mass. It seems 
that the inhabitants of the castle were at this time engaged in the favorite 
sport of enacting the Abbot of Unreason, a species of high jinks, in which 
a mimic prelate was elected, who, like the Lord of Misrule in England, 
turned all sort of lawful authority, and particularly the church ritual, into 


43 ^ 


NOTES I'O TJ/IC ABB 07 \ 


ridicule. This frolicsome person with his retinue, notwithstanding of the 
apparitor’s character, entered the church, seized upon the primate’s officer 
without hesitation, and dragging him to the mill-dam on the south side of 
the castle, compelled him to leap into the water. Not contented with this 
partial immersion, the Abbot of Unreason pronounced that Mr. William 
Langlands was not yet sufficiently bathed, and therefore caused his assist- 
ants to lay him on his back in the stream, and duck him in the most satis- 
factory and perfect manner. The unfortunate apparitor was then conducted 
back to the church, where, for his refreshment after his bath, the letters of 
excommunication were torn to pieces, and steeped in a bowl of wine ; the 
mock abbot being probably of opinion that a tough parchment was but dry 
eating, Langlands was compelled to eat the letters and swallow the wine, 
and dismissed by the Abbot of Unreason with the comfortable assurance, 
that if any more such letters should arrive during the continuance of his 
office, “ they should a’ gang the same gate,” i.e,, go the same road. 

A similar scene occurs betwixt a sumner of the Bishop of Rochester and 
Harpool, the servant of Lord Cobham, in the old play of Sir John Old- 
castle, when the former compels the church-officer to eat his citation. The 
dialogue, which may be found in the note, contains most of the jests 
which may be supposed appropriate to such an extraordinary occasion. * 


Note G, p. 126. — The IIobby-hoese. 

This exhibition, the play-mare of Scotland, stood high among holiday 
gambols. It must be carefully separated from the wooden chargers which 
furnish out our nurseries. It gives rise to Hamlet’s ejaculation — 

But oh, but oh, the hobby-horse is forgot ! 

* Harpool. Marry, sir, is this process parchment ? 

Sumner. Ves, marry is it. 

Harpool. And this seal wax? 

Sumner. It is so. 

Harpool. If this be parchment, and this be wax, eat you this parchment and wax, or I 
will make parchment of your skin, and beat your brains into wax. Sirrah Sumner, des- 
patch— devour, sirrah, devour. 

Sumner. I am my Lord of Rochester's sumner ; I came to do my office, and thou shalt 
answer it. 

Harpool. Sirrah, no railing, but betake thyself to thy teeth. Thou shalt eat no worse 
than thou bringest with thee. Thou bringest it for my lord : and wilt thou bring my lord 
worse than thou wilt eat thyself ? 

Sumner. Sir, 1 brought it not my lord to eat. 

Harpool. O, do you .izV me now? All’s one for that; I’ll make you eat it for bring- 
ing it. 

Sumner. I cannot eat it. 

Harpool. Can you not ? ’Sblood, I'll beat you till you have a stomach. 

{Beats him.') 

Sumner. Oh, hold, hold, good Mr. Servingman ; I will eat it. 

Harpool. Be champing, be chewing, sir, or 1 will chew you, you rogue. Tough wax is 
the purest of the honey. 

Sumner. The purest of the honey? — O Lord, sir, oh ! oh ! 

Harpool. Feed, feed ; ’tis wholesome, rogue, wholesome. Cannot you, like an honest 
sumner, walk with the devil, your brother, to fetch in your bailiff’s rents, but you must 
come to a nobleman’s house with process? If the seal were broad as the lead which covers 
Rochester Church, thou shouldst eat it. 

Sumner. Oh, I am almost choked — I am almost choked ! 

Harpool. Who’s within there? Will you shame my lord? Is there no beer in the house? 
Butler, I say. 

Enter Butler. 

Butler. Here, here. 

Harpool. Give him beer. Tou^h old sheep-skin’s but dry meaL 

First Part of Sir John Oldcastle, Act II. Scene i. 


NOTES TO THE ABBOT. 


437 


There is a very comic scene in Beaumont and Fletcher’s play of Woman 
Pleased^ where Hope-on-high Bombye, a Puritan cobbler, refuses to dance 
with the hobby-horse. There was much difficulty and great variety in the 
motions which the hobby-horse was expected to exhibit. 

The learned Mr. Douce, who has contributed so much to the illustration 
of our theatrical antiquities, has given us a full account of this pageant, 
and the burlesque horsemanship which it practised. 

“The hobby-horse,” says Mr. Douce, “was represented by a man 
equipped with as much pasteboard as was sufficient to form the head and 
hinder parts of a horse, the quadrupedal defects being concealed by a long 
mantle or foot-cloth that nearly touched the ground. The former, on this 
occasion, exerted all his skill in burlesque horsemanship. In Sympson’s 
play of the Law-breakers, 1636, a miller personates the hobby-horse, and 
being angry that the mayor of the city is put in competition with him, ex- 
claims, ‘ Let the mayor play the hobby-horse among his brethren, an he 
will ; I hope our town-lads cannot want a hobby-horse. Have I practised 
my reins, my careers, my prankers, my ambles, my false trots, my smooth 
ambles, and Canterbury paces, and shall master mayor put me beside the 
hobby-horse ? Have I borrowed the fore-horse bells, his plumes, his 
braveries ; nay, had his mane new-shorn and frizzled, and shall the mayor 
put me beside the hobby-horse? ’ ” — Douce’s Illustrations, vol. ii. p. 468. 

Note H, p. 127.— Robin FIood and Little John. 

The representation of Robin Hood was the darling May-game both in 
England and Scotland, and doubtless the favorite personification was often 
revived, when the Abbot of Unreason, or other pretences of frolic, gave an 
unusual degree of license. 

The Protestant clergy, who had formerly reaped advantage from the op- 
portunities which these sports afforded them of directing their own satire 
and the ridicule of the lower orders against the Catholic Church, began to 
find that, when these purposes were served, their favorite pastimes de- 
prived them of the wish to attend divine worship and disturbed the frame 
of mind in which it can be attended to advantage. The celebrated Bishop 
Latimer gives a very ftdive account of the manner in which, bishop as he 
was, he found himself compelled to give place to Robin Hood and his fol- 
lowers. 

“I came once myselfe riding on a journey homeward from London, and 
I sent word over night into the towne that I would preach there in the 
morning, because it was holiday, and me thought it was a holidayes worke. 
The church stood in my way, and I took my horse and my company, and 
went thither (I thought I should have found a great company in the church), 
and when I came there the church doore was fast locked. I tarryed there 
halfe an houre and more. At last the key was found, and one of the parish 
comes to me and said— ‘ Sir, this is a busie day with us ; we cannot hear 
you ; it is Robin Hood’s day. The parish are gone abroad to gather for 
Robin Hood. I pray you let them not.’ I was faine there to give 
place to Robin Hood. I thought my rochet should have been re- 
garded, though I were not ; but it would not serve, it was faine to give 
place to Robm Hood’s men. It is no laughing matter, my friends, it is a 
weeping matter, a heavie matter, a heavie matter. Under the pretence for 
gathering for Robin Flood, a traytour and a theif, to put out a preacher j 
to have his office lesse esteemed ; to preferre Robin Hood before the min. 
istration of God’s word ; and all this hath come of unpreaching prelates. 
This realme hath been ill provided for, that it hath had. such corrupt .judg- 


43 ^ 


NOTES TO TJIK ABBOT. ■ 

ments in it, to prefer Robin Hood to God’s word .” — Bishop Latimer's 
Sixth Sermon before King Edward. 

While the English Protestants thus preferred the outlaw’s pageant to the 
preaching of their excellent Bishop, the Scottish Calvinistic clergy, with the 
celebrated John Knox at their head, and backed by the authority of the 
magistrates of Edinburgh, who had of late been chosen exclusively from 
this party, found it impossible to control the rage of the populace, when 
they attempted to deprive them of the privilege of presenting their pageant 
of Robin Hood. 

(1561.) “ Vpon the xxi day of Junij, Archibalde Dowglas of Kilspindie, 
Provest of Edr., David Symmer, and Adame Fullartoun, baillies of the 
samyne, causit ane cordinare servant, callit James Gillion, takin of befoir, 
for playing in Edr. with Robene Hude, to wnderly the law, and put him to 
the knawlege of ane assyize quhilk thaij haid electit of thair favoraris, 
quha with schort deliberatioun condemnit him to be hangit for the said 
cryme. And the deaconis of the craftismen fearing vproare, maid great 
solistatnis at the handis of the said provost and baillies, and als requirit 
John Knox, minister, for eschewing of tumult, to superceid the executioun 
of him, vnto the tyme thai suld adverteis my Lord Duke thairof. And 
than, if it wes his mynd and will that he should be disponit vpoun, the said 
deaconis and craftismen sould convey him thaire ; quha answerit, that thai 
culd na way stope the executioun of justice. Quhan the tyme of the said 
pouer mans hanging approchit, and that the hangman wes cum to the jib- 
bat with the ledder, vpoune the quhilk the said cordinare should have bene 
hangit, ane certaine and remanent craftischilder, quha wes put to the home 
with the said Gillione, ffor the said Robene Hude’s playes, and vtheris thair 
assistaris and favoraids, past to wappinis, and thai brak down the said jib- 
bat, and than chacit the said provest, baillies, and Alexr. Guthrie, in the 
said Alexander’s writing buith, and held thame thairin ; and, thairefter 
past to the Tolbuyt, and becaus the samyne was steiket, and onnawayes 
culd get the keyes thairof, thai brake the said tolbuith dore with foure ham- 
mcris, per force (the said Provest and baillies luckand thairon), and not 
onlie put thar the said Gillione to fredome and libertie, and brocht him 
furth of the said tolbuit, bot alsua the remanent presonaris being thairin- 
till ; and this done, the said craftismen’s servands, with the said condemp- 
nit cordonar, past doun to the Netherbow, to have past furth thairat ; bot 
becaus the samyne on thair coming thairto wes closet, thai past vp agane 
the Hie streit of the said bourghe to the Castellhill, and in this menetyme 
the saidis provest and baillies, and thair assistaris, being in the writting 
buith of the said Alexr. Guthrie, past and enterit in the said tolbuyt, and 
in the said servandes passage vp the Hie streit, then schote furth thairof at 
thame ane dog, and hurt ane servande of the said chikler. This being 
done, thair wes nathing vthir but the one partie schuteand out and castand 
stanes furth of the said tolbuyt, and the vther pairtie schuteand hagbuttis 
in the same agane. And sua the craftismen’s servandis, aboue written, 
held and inclosit the said provest and baillies continewallie in the said tol- 
buyth, frae three houids efternone, quhill aught houris at even, and na man 
of the said town prensit to relieve thair said provest and baillies. And 
than thai send to the maisters of the Castell, to cans tham if thai mycht 
stay the said servandis, quha made ane maner to do the same, bot thai 
could not bring the same to ane finall end, ffor the said servands wold on 
nowayes stay fra, quhill thai had revengit the hurting of ane of them ; and 
thairefter the constable of the castell come down thairfra, and he with the 
said maisters treatet betwix the said pties in this manner : — That the said 
provost and baillies sail remit to the said craftischilder all actioun, cryme. 


NOTES TO THE ABBOT. 


439 


and offcns that thai had committit aganes thame in any tynie bygane ; and 
band and oblast thame never to pursew them thairfor; and als commandit 
thair maisters to resaue them agane in thair services, as thai did befoir. 
And this being proclamit at the mercat cross, thai scalit, and the said pro- 
vest and baillies come furth of the same tolbouyth,” etc. etc. etc. 

John Knox, who writes at large upon this tumult, informs us it was in- 
flamed by the deacons of craftes, who, resenting the superiority assumed 
over them by the magistrates, would yield no assistance to put down the 
tumult. “They will be magistrates alone,” said the recusant deacons, 
“e’en let them rule the populace alone ; ” and accordingly they passed 
quietly to take ^/leir fotir-hours' penny, and left the magistrates to help 
themselves as they could. Many persons were excommunicated for this 
outrage, and not admitted to church ordinances till they had made satis- 
faction. 


Note I, p. 149. — Inability of Evil Spirits to enter a House unin- 
vited. 

There is a popular belief respecting evil spirits, that they cannot enter 
an inhabited house unless invited, nay, dragged over the threshold. There 
is an instance of the same superstition in the Tales of the Genii, where 
an enchanter is supposed to have intruded himself into the Divan of the 
Sultan. 

“ ‘Thus,’ said the illustrious Misnar, ‘let the enemies of Mahomet be 
dismayed ! but inform me, O ye sages ! under the semblance of which of 
yo*ir brethren did that foul enchanter gain admittance here ?’ — ‘May the 
lord of my heart,’ answered Balihu, the hermit of the faithful from Queda, 
‘ triumph over all his foes ! As I trayelled on the mountains from Queda, 
and saw neither the footsteps of beasts, nor the flight of birds, behold, I 
chanced to pass through a cavern, in whose hollow sides I found this 
accursed sage, to whom I unfolded the invitation of the Sultan of India, 
and we, joining, journeyed toward the Divan ; but ere we entered, he 
said unto me, ‘ Put thy hand forth, and pull me toward thee into the 
Divan, calling on the name of Mahomet, for the evil spirits are on me, 
and vex me.’ ” 

I have understood that many parts of these fine tales, and in particular 
that of the Sultan Misnar, were taken from genuine Oriental sources by the 
editor, Mr. James Ridley. 

But the most picturesque use of this popular belief occurs in Coleridge’s 
beautiful and tantalizing fragment of Christabel. Has not our own imagi- 
native poet cause to fear that future ages will desire to summon him from 
his place of rest, as Milton longed 

“ To call him up, who left half told 
The story of Cambuscan bold ? ” 

The verses I refer to are when Christabel conducts into her father’s castle 
a mysterious and malevolent being under the guise of a distressed female 
stranger. 


“They crossed the moat, and Christabel 
Took the key that fitted well : 

A little door she open’d straight, 

All in the middle of the gate, 

The gate that was iron’d within and without, 
Where an army in battle array had marched out. 


440 


NOTES TO THE ABBOT 


“ The lady sank, belike through pain, 

And Christabel with might and main 
Lifted her up, a weary weight, 

Over the threshold of the gate ; 

Then the lady rose again, 

And moved as she w'ere not in pain. 

“ So free from danger, free from fear. 

They crossed the court right glad they were. 
And Christabel devoutly cried 
To the lady by her .side : — 

* Praise we the Virgin, all divine, 

Who hath rescued thee from this distress.* 

* Alas, alas ! ’ said Geraldine, 

* I cannot speak from weariness.’ 

So free from danger, free from fear, 

They crossed the court ; — right glad they were.” 


Note J, p. 171 . — Seyton or Seton. 

George, fifth Lord Seton, was immovably faithful to Queen Mary during 
all the mutabilities of her fortune. He was grand-master of the household, 
in which capacity he had a picture painted of himself, with his official 
baton, and the following motto : — 

In ad-versitate, pattens ; 

In prosperitate, benevolus. 

Hazard, yet forward. 


On various parts of his castle he inscribed, as expressing his religious 
and political creed, the legend, 

Un Dieu, UN Fov, UN Roy, un Loy. 

He declined to be promoted to an earldom, which Queen Mary offered 
him at the same time when she advanced her natural brother to be Earl of 
Mar, and afterward of Murray. 

On his refusing this honor, Mary wrote, or caused to be written, the 
following lines in Latin and French : — 

Sunt comites, ducesque alii ; sunt denique reges ; 

Sethoni dominum sit satis esse mihi. 

II y a des comptes, des roys, des dues ; ainsi 
C’est assez pour moy d’estre Seigneur de Seton. 

Which may be thus rendered : — 

Earl, duke, or king, be thou that list to be : 

Sgton, thy lordship is enough for me. 

This distich reminds us of the “pride which aped humility,” in the 
motto of the house of Couci — 


Je suis ni roy, ni prince aussi ; 

Je suis le Seigneur de Coucy. 

After the battle of Langside Lord Seton was obliged to retire abroad for 
safety, and was an exile for two years, during which he was reduced to the 
necessity of driving a wagon in Flanders for his subsistence. He rose to 
favor in James VI.’s reign, and resuming his paternal property, had him- 
self painted in his wagoner s dress, and in the act of driving a wain with 


NOTES TO THE ABBOT. 


441 


four horses, on the north end of a stately galler>' at Seton Castle. He ap- 
pears to have been fond of the arts \ for there exists a beautiful family-piece 
of him in the centre of his family, Mr. Pinkerton, in his Scottish Jconogra- 
phia, published an engraving of this curious portrait. The original is the 
property of Lord Somerville, nearly connected with the Seton family, and 
is at present at his lordship’s fishing villa of the Pavilion, near Melrose. 


Note K, p. 245. — Resignation of Queen Mary. 

The details of this remarkable event are, as given in chapter xxi., imag- 
inary ; but the outline of the events is historical. Sir Robert Lindesay, 
brother to the author of the Memoirs, was at first intrusted with the deli- 
cate commission of persuading the imprisoned Queen to resign her cro\^-n. 
As he flatly refused to interfere, they determined to send the Lord Linde- 
say, one of the rudest and most violent of their ovm faction, with instruc- 
tions, first to use fair persuasions, and if these did not succeed, to enter 
into harder terms. Knox associates Lord Ruthven with Lindesay in this 
alarming commission. He was the son of that Lord Ruthven who was 
prime agent in the murder of Rizzio ; and little mercy was to be expected 
from his conjunction with Lindesay. 

The employment of such rude tools argued a resolution on the part of 
those who had the Queen’s person in their power, to proceed to the utmost 
extremities should they find Mary obstinate. To avoid this pressing danger, 
Sir Robert Melville was despatched by them to Lochleven, carrjnng with 
him, concealed in the scabbard of his sword, letters to the Queen from the 
Earl of Athole, Maitland of Lethington, and even from Throgmorton, the 
English Ambassador, who was then favorable to the unfortunate Mar>% 
conjuring her to yield to the necessity of the times, and to subscribe such 
deeds as Lindesay should lay before her, without being startled by their 
tenor, and assuring her that her doing so, in the state of captivity under 
which she was placed, would neither in law, honor, nor conscience, be 
binding upon her when she should obtain her liberty. Submitting by the 
advice of one part of her subjects to the menace of the others, and learning 
that Lindesay was arrived in a boasting, that is, threatening humor, the 
Queen, “with some reluctancy, and with tears,” saith Knox, subscribed 
one deed resigning her crown to her infant son, and another establishing 
the Earl of Murray Regent. It seems agreed by historians that Lindesay 
behaved with great brutality on the occasion. The deeds were signed 
24th July 1567. 


Note L, p. 365. — Kiery Cr.\igs. 

[Lord Chief-Commissioner Adam, in the year 1817, formed what was 
called a Blair- Adam Club, consisting of Sir Walter Scott and a few other 
friends, who assembled once a-year at Blair- Adam House, near the shores 
of Lochleven. In his Reminiscences the Lord Chief-Commissioner, when 
referring to the anonymous publication of th^Waverley Novels, records the 
following anecdote: — “What confirmed, and was certainly meant to dis- 
close to me the author, was the mention of the Kiery Craigs, a picturesque 
piece of scenery in the grounds of Blair- Adam, as being in the vicinity of 
Kelty Bridge, the howf of Auchtermuchty, the Kinross carrier. It was 
only an intimate friend of the family who could know anything of the 
Kiery Craigs or its name ; and both the scenery and the name had attrac* 
tions for Sir Waken 


442 


NOTES TO THE ABBOT. 


“ At our first meeting after the publication of the Abbot, when the party 
were assembled on the top of the rock, the Chief-Baron Shepherd, looking 
Sir Waiter full in the face, and stamping his staff on the ground, said, 
‘Now, Sir Walter, I think we be upon the top of the Kiery Craigs.'' Sir 
Walter preserved profound silence ; but there was a conscious looking 
down, and a considerable elongation of his upper lip. ” — Blair- Adam T’rac/j, 

1834, p. XXXV.] 


Note M, p. 390 . — Queen Mary’s Demeanor. 

In the dangerous expedition to Aberdeenshire, Randolph, the English 
Ambassador, gives Cecil the following account of Queen Mary’s de- 
meanor : — 

“In all those garbulles, I assure your honor, I never saw the Queen 
merrier, never dismayed ; nor never thought I that stomache to be in her 
that I find. She repented nothing but, when the Lords and others, at 
Inverness, came in the morning from the watches, that she was not a man 
to know what life it was to lye all night in the fields, or to walk upon the 
causeway with a jack and a knapscap, a Glasgow buckler, and a broad- 
sword.” — Randolph to Cecil, September 18, 1562. 

The writer of the above letter seems to have felt the same impression 
which Catherine Seyton, in the text, considered as proper to the Queen’s 
presence among her armed subjects. 

“ Though we neither thought nor looked for other than on that day to 
have fought or never — what desperate blows would not have been given, 
when every man should have fought in the sight of so noble a Queen, and 
so many fair ladies, our enemies to have taken them from us, and we to 
save our honors, not to be reft of them, your honor can easily judge ! ” — 
The Same to the Same, September 24, 1562. 

Note N, p. 393. — Escape of Queen Mary. 

It is well known that the escape of Queen Mary from Lochleven was 
effected by George Douglas, the youngest brother of Sir William Douglas, 
the lord of the castle ; but the minute circumstances of the event have 
been a good deal confused, owing to two agents having been concerned in 
it who bore the same name. It has been always supposed that George 
Douglas was induced to abet Mary’s escape by the ambitious hope that 
by such service he might merit her hand. But his purpose was discovered 
by his brother Sir William, and he was expelled from the castle. He con- 
tinued, notwithstanding, to hover in the neighborhood, and maintain a cor- 
respondence with the royal prisoner and others in the fortress. 

If we believe the English Ambassador Drury, the Queen was grateful to 
George Douglas, and even proposed a marriage with him ; a scheme which 
could hardly be serious, since she was still the wife of Bothwell, but which, 
if suggested at all, might l^e with a purpose of gratifying the Regent 
Murray’s ambition, and propitiating his favor ; since he was, it must be 
remembered, the brother uterine of George Douglas, for whom such high 
honor was said to be designed. 

The proposal, if seriously made, was treated as inadmissible, and Mary 
again resumed her purpose of escape. Her failure in her first attempt has 
some picturesque particulars, which might have been advantageously in- 
troduced in fictitious narrative. Drury sends Cecil the following account 
of the matter : — 


.VOTES TO THE ABBOT. 


443 


“But after, upon the 25th of the last (April 1567) she interprised an 
pcape, and was the rather near effect, through her accustomed long lying 
in bed a 1 the morning. The matter of it was thus ; there cometh in to 
her the laundress early as other times before she was wanted, and the 
Queen, according to such a secret practice, putteth on her the hood of the 
laundress, and so with the fardel of clothes and the muffler upon her face 
passeth out and entreth the boat to pass the Loch ; which, after some 
space, one of them that rowed said merrily, ‘ Let us see what manner of 
dame this is,’ and therewith offered to pull down her muffler, which to 
defend, she put up her hands, which they spied to be very fair and white • 
wherewith they entered into suspicion whom she was, beginning to wonder 
at her enterprise. \\ hereat she was little dismayed, but charged them, 
upon danger of their lives, to row her over to the shore, which they nothinpr 
regarded, but eftsoons rowed her back again, promising her it should be 
secieted, and especially from the lord of the house, under whose guard she 
lyeth. It seemeth she knew her refuge, and where to have found it if she 
had once landed ; for there did, and yet do linger, at a little village called 
Kinross, hard at the Loch side, the same George Douglas, one Sempill, and 
one Beton, the which two were sometime her trusty servants, and, as yet 
appeareth, they mind her no less affection.”— Bishop Keith’s 
the Affairs of Church and State ht Scotland, p. 490. 

Notwithstanding this disappointment, little spoke of by historians, Mary 
renewed her attempts to escape. There was in the Castle of Lochleven a 
lad named William Douglas, some relation probably of the baron, and 
about eighteen years old. This youth proved as accessible to Queen Mary’s 
prayers and promises as w^as the brother of his patron, George Douglas, 
from whom this William must be carefully kept distinct. It was young 
W illiam who played the part commonly assigned to his superior George, 
stealing the keys of the castle from the table on which they lay while his 
lord was at supper. He let the Queen and a waiting-woman out of the 
apartment where they were secured, and out of the tower itself, en.barked 
with them in a small skiff, and rowed them to the shore. To prevent in- 
stant pursuit, he, for precaution’s sake, locked the iron-grated door of the 
tower, and threw the keys into the lake. They found George Douglas and 
the Queen’s servant, Beton, waiting for them, and Lord Seyton and James 
Hamilton of Orbieston in attendance, at the head of a party of faithful 
followers, with whom they fled to Niddrie Castle, and from thence to 
Hamilton. 

In narrating this romantic story, both history and tradition confuse the 
two Douglases together, and confer on George the successful execution of 
the escape from the castle, the merit of which belongs, in reality, to the 
boy called W’illiam, or, more frequently, the Little Douglas, either from 
his youth or his slight stature. The reader will observe that in the romance 
the part of the Little Douglas has been assigned to Roland Graeme. In 
another case it would be tedious to point out in a work of amusement 
such minute points of historical fact ; but the general interest taken in the 
fate of Queen Mary renders everything of consequence which connects 
itself with her misfortunes. [See also Proceedings Scot. Antiq., vol. iii. 
Feb. 13, i86o.j 


Note O, p. 415. — Battle of Langside. 

I am informed in the most polite manner, by Mr, D. MacVean of Glas- 
gow, that I have been incorrect in my locality in giving an account of the 
battle of Langside. Crookstone Castle, he observes, lies four miles west 


444 


.VOTES TO THE ABBOT. 


from the field of battle, and rather in the rear of Murray’s army. The 
real place from which Mary saw the rout of her last army was Cathcar 
Castle, which, being a mile and a half east from Langside, was situated in 
the rear of the Queen’s own army. I was led astray in the present case by 
the authority of my deceased friend James Grahame, the excellent and 
amialile author of Sabbath, in his drama on the subject of Queen Mary ; 
and by a traditionary report of Mary having seen the battle from the Castle 
of Crookstone, which seemed so much to increase the interest of the scene, 
that I have been unwilling to make, in this particular instance, the fiction 
give way to the fact, which last is undoubtedly in favor of Mr. MacVean’s 
system. 

It is singular how tradition, which is sometimes a sure guide to truth, is, 
in other cases, prone to mislead us. In the celebrated field of battle at 
Killiecrankie, the traveller is struck with one of those rugged pillars of 
rough stone, which indicate the scenes of ancient conflict. A friend of 
the author, well acquainted with the circumstances of the battle, was stand- 
ing near this large stone, and looking on the scene around, when a High- 
land shepherd hurried down from the hill to offer his services as cicerone, 
and proceeded to inform him that Dundee was slain at that stone, which 
was raised to his memory. “Fie, Donald,” answered my friend, “how 
can you tell such a story to a stranger ? I am sure you know well enough 
that Dundee was killed at a considerable distance from this place, near the 
house of Fascally, and that this stone was here long before the battle in 
1688.” “ Oich ! oich ! ” said Donald, no way abashed, “and your 

honor’s in the right, and I see you ken a’ about it. And he wasna killed 
on the spot neither, but lived till the next morning ; but a’ the Saxon gen- 
tlemen like best to hear he was killed at the great stane.” It is on 
the same principle of pleasing my readers, that I retain Crookstone Castle 
instead of Cathcart. 

If, however, the author has taken a liberty in removing the actual field 
of battle somewhat to the eastward, he has been tolerably strict in adher- 
ing to the incidents of the engagement, as will appear from a comparison 
of events in the novel, with the following account from an old writer. 

“The Regent was out on foot and all his company, except the Laird of 
Grange, Alexander Flume of Manderston, and some Borderers, to the num- 
ber of two hundred. The Laird of Grange had already viewed the ground, 
and with all imaginable diligence caused every horseman to take behind 
him a footman of the Regent’s, to guard behind them, and rode with speed 
to the head of the Langside Flill, and set down the footmen with their cul- 
verings at the head of a straight lane, where there were some cottage houses 
and yards of great advantage. Which soldiers with their continual shot 
killed divers of the vaunt guard, led by the Hamiltons, who courageously 
and fiercely ascending up the hill, were already out of breath, when the 
Regent’s vaunt guard joined with them. Where the worthy Lord Hume 
fought on foot with his pike in hand very manfully, assisted by the Laird 
of Cessford, his brother-in-law, who helped him up again when he was 
strucken to the ground by many strokes upon his face, through the throw- 
ing pistols at him after they had been discharged. He was also wounded 
with staves, and had many strokes of spears through his legs ; for he and 
Grange, at the joining, cried to let their adversaries first lay down their 
spears to bear up theirs : which spears were so thick fixed in the others’ 
jacks, that some of the pistols and great staves that were thrown by them 
which were behind, might be seen lying upon the spears. 

“Upon the Queen’s side the Earl of Argyle commanded the battle, and 
the Lord of Arbroath the vaunt guard. But the Regent committed to the 


NOTES TO THE ABBOT. 


445 


Laird of Grange the special care, as being an experimented captain, to 
oversee every danger, and to ride to every wing, to encourage and make 
help where greatest need was. He perceived, at the first joining, the right 
wing of the Regent’s vaunt guard put back, and like to fly, whereof the 
greatest part were commons of the barony of Renfrew ; whereupon he rode 
to them, and told them that their enemy was already turning their backs, 
requesting them to stay and debate till he should bring them fresh men 
forth of the battle. Whither at full speed he did ride alone, and told the 
Regent that the enemy were shaken and flying away behind the little vil- 
lage, and desired a few number of fresh men to go with him. Where he 
found enough willing, as the Lord Lindesay, the Laird of Lochleven, Sir 
James Balfour, and all the Regent’s servants, who followed him with dili- 
gence, and reinforced that wing which was beginning to fly ; which fresh 
men with their loose weapons struck the enemies in their flank and faces, 
which forced them incontinent to give place and turn back after long fight- 
ing and pushing others to and fro with their spears. There were not many 
horsemen to pursue after them, and the Regent cried to save and not to 
kill, and Grange was never cruel, so that there were few slain and taken. 
And the only slaughter was at the first rencounter by the shot of the 
soldiers, which Grange had planted at the lane-head behind some dikes.” 

It is remarkable that, while passing through the small town of Ruther- 
glen, some partisans, adherents of the House of Lennox, attempting to 
arrest Queen Mary and her attendants, were obliged to make way for her, 
not without slaughter. 

[The Castle of Rutherglen was demolished immediately after the battle 
by the Regent’s party. 

The suburban district of Glasgow toward the south, named Cathcart, 
takes its name from the old castle, and, owing to the gi'owth of the city in 
this direction, the site of the battle of Langside is brought contiguous to 
the southeast side of the Queen’s Park. On the west of this park the site 
of the Regent Murray’s camp is commemorated by the “Camp Hill,” and 
at the village of Langside there is a cottage which goes by the name of 
“Queen Mary’s Cottage.” The Queen’s Park is in a direct line with 
Glasgow Bridge, from which it is three miles distant in a straight line.] 

Note P, p. 431. — Burial of the Abbot’s Heart in the Avenel Aisle. 

This was not the explanation of the incident of searching for the heart, 
mentioned in the introduction to the tale, which the Author originally in- 
tended. It was the design to refer to the heart of Robert Bruce. It is 
generally known that that great monarch, being on his deathbed, be- 
queathed to the good Lord James of Douglas the task of canying his heart 
to the Holy Land, to fulfil in a certain degree his own desire to perform a 
crusade. Upon Douglas’s death, fighting against the Moors in Spain, a 
sort of military hors d"' oeuvre to which he could have pleaded no regular 
call of duty, his followers brought back the Bruce’s heart, and deposited it 
in the Abbey church of Melrose, the Kennaquhair of the tale. 

This Abbey has been always particularly favored by the Bruce. We 
have already seen his extreme anxiety that each of the reverend brethren 
should be daily supplied with a service of boiled almonds, rice and milk, 
pease, or the like, to be called the King’s mess, and that without the ordi- 
nary service of their table being either disturbed in quantity or quality. 
But this was not the only mark of the benignity of good King Robert to- 
ward the monks of Melrose, since, by a charter of the date 29th May, 
1326, he conferred on the Abbot of Melrose the sum of two thousand 


446 


NO 'FES TO THE ABBOT 


pounds sterling, for rebuilding the church of St. Mnry’s, ruined by the 
English ; and there is little or no doubt that the principal part of the re- 
mains which now display such exquisite specimens of Gothic architecture, 
at its very purest period, had their origin in this munificent donation. The 
money was to be paid out of crown lands, estates forfeited to the King, 
and other property or demesnes of the crown. 

A very curious letter, written to his son about three weeks before his 
death, has been pointed out to me by my friend Mr. Thomas Thomson, 
Deputy- Register for Scotland. It enlarges so much on the love of the royal 
writer to the community of Melrose, that it is well worthy of being inserted 
in a work connected in some degree with Scottish History. 

Litera Domini Regis Roberti ad filium Suum David. 

“Robertas dei gratia Rex Scottorum, David precordialissimo filio suo, 
ac ceteris successoribus suis ; Salutem, et sic ejus precepta tenere, ut cum 
sua benedictione possint regnare. Fili carissime, digne censeri videtur 
filius, qui, paternos in bonis mores imitans, piam ejus nititur exequi volun- 
tatem ; nec proprie sibi sumit nomen heredis, qui salubribus predecessoris 
affectibus non adheret : Cupientes igitur, ut piam affectionem et scinceram 
dilectionem, quam erga monasterium de Melros, ubi cor nostrum ex speciali 
devotione disposuimus tumulandum, et erga Religiosos ibidem Deo servi- 
entes, ipsorum vita santissima nos ad hoc excitante, concepimus ; Tu 
ceterique successores nostri pia scinceritate prosequamini, ut, ex vestre 
dilectionis affectu dictis Religiosis nostri causa post mortem nostram ostenso, 
ipsi pro nobis ad orandum fervencius et forcius animentur : Vobis precipi- 
mus quantum possumus, instanter supplicamus, etex toto corde injungimus, 
Quatinus assignacionibus quas eisdem viris Religiosis et fabrica Ecclesie 
sue de novo fecimus ac eciam omnibus aliis donacionibus nostris, ipsos 
libere gaudere permittentes, Easdem potius si necesse fuerit augmentantes 
quam diminuentes, ipsorum peticiones auribus benevolis admittentes, ac 
ipsos contra suos invasores et emulos pia defensione protegentes. Hanc 
autem exhortacionem supplicacionem et preceptem tu, fili ceterique suc- 
cessores nostri, prestanti animo complere curetis, si nostram benedictionem 
habere velitis, una cum benedictione filii summi Regis, qui filios docuit 
patrum voluntates in bono perficere, asserens in mundum se venisse non ut 
suam yoluntatem faceret sed paternam. In testimonium autem nostre de- 
votionis erga locum predictum sic a nobis dilectum ef electum concepte, 
presentem literam Religiosis predictis dimittimus, nostris successoribus in 
posterum ostendendam. Data apud Cardros, undecimo die Maij, Anno 
Regni nostri vicesimo quarto.” 

If this charter be altogether genuine, and there is no appearance of for- 
gery, it gives rise to a curious doubt in Scottish history. The letter an- 
nounces that the King had already destined his heart to be deposited at 
Melrose. The resolution to send it to Palestine, under the charge of 
Douglas, must have been adopted betwixt nth May, 1329, the date of the 
letter, and 7th June of the same year, when the Bruce died ; or else we 
must suppose that the commission of Douglas extended not only to taking 
the Bruce’s heart to Palestine, but to bring it safe back to its final place of 
deposit in the Abbey of Melrose. 

It would not be worth inquiring by what caprice the Aifthor was induced 
to throw the incident of the Bruce’s heart entirely out of the story, save 
merely to say, that he found himself unable to fill up the canvas he had 
sketched, and indisposed to prosecute the management of the supernatural 
machinery with which his plan, when it was first rough-hewn, was con- 
nected and combined. 


GLOSSARY TO THE MONASTERY 
AND THE ABBOT. 


A, all. 

Ae, one. 

Aef.aui.d, honest. 

*Ain, own. 

Aver, draught-horse. 

Bailie, a magistrate. 

Bairn, a child. 

Be URAL, a sexton. 

Bkef brewis, beef-soup. 

'&'E.n,far ben, well on, successful, very inti- 
mate. 

Bif-LD, shelter. 

Birn, a bum. 

Boole, a .small copper coin. 

Bow, a boll measure. 

Bowfr-woman, lady’s-maid. 

Braw, brave, fine. 

Bro.ach, a roasting spit. 

Brochan, a sort of thick gruel. 

Brogg, to prick or stick with a goad or 
lance. 

Burn, a brook. 

Busk, to deck. 

Callet, the head. 

Cantrip, a frolic. 

Canty. cheerful. 

Carle, a fellow. 

Carline, a witch. 

Cawker, the sharpened heels of a horse- 
shoe. 

Chimlev, chimney. ... 

Clap and hapi-er, signs of mvestiture into 
mill property. 

Clicking, hatching. 

Cleuch, a ravine or dell. 

Cloot, a rag. . , m, v 

Cock-laird, a small squire who tiUs his own 

land. 

CoFFE, merchant. 

Cogging knave, greedy fellow. 

CoLLOPS. minced meat. 

Cracks, gossip, yams. 

Cu.M.MEK, neighbor. 

Cushat, the ring-dove. 

Daffi.v, larking. 

Dakg, a task, work. 

Deil, devil. . v , u 

Dight your gabs, wipe your mouth, hold 
your tongue. 

Douce, quiet. 


Earded, buried. 

Ee, eye. 

Erne, the eagle. 

Fash, trouble. 

Fend, to provide. 

Firlot, quarter of a boll measure. 
Fleighter, to flicker. 

Forbe.ars, ancestors. 

For BY, be.sides. 

Forgather, take up with, become intimat< 
Fou, full, drunk. 

Fr.ae, from. 

Galligaskin, a wide sort of trouser. 

Gatf., way, direction. 

Gaze-hound, a dog that hunts by the eye, 
a greyhound. 

Gear, property. 

Ger or GAR, to cause, make, or force. 

Gled, the kite. 

Gleg, smart. 

Gey thick, pretty thick. 

Gliff, a glance. 

God sain, God bless. 

Greet, to cry or weep. 

Grist, grain sent to a mill in payment foi 
grinding. 

Gude-man, the husband or head of the house. 
Gyre-carline, hag, hobgoblin. 

Hae, have. 

Haill, whole. 

Haggis, a pudding of minced meat, oat- 
meal, and spice. 

Halidome, the sanctuary or land held un- 
der an abbey or convent. 

Hap, to cover up. 

Haud, to hold. 

Heath er-bleathr, the mire-smpe. 

Hem PIE, a lad. 

Hirsel, a flock or drove. 

Hofse-couper, horse-dealer. ^ 

Howff, a retreat, place of meetmg. 

HdvK, to dig 

Ilk, each.^ 

Ingyre, to introduce one’s-self cunningly. 

Joe, a sweetheart. 

I JoUK, to shift or incline. 

i 

^ Kail worm, cabbage worm. 


448 GLOSSARY TO THE MONASTERY AND THE ABBOT, 


Kain fowls, poultry due to the landlord as 
part of the rent. 

Kkeking-glass, a looking-glass. 

Kf.ndna, knew not. 

Kenspeckle, conspicuous, odd-like. 
Kestrel, a .species of hawk. 

Kipper, dried salmon. 

Kirn, a churn. 

Kirn milk, butter milk. 

Kittle, ticklish, sly. 

Knowe, a knoll. 

Kyte, the belly. 

Lamping, taking long strides. 

Lawing, the account or bill. 

Lice, lie. 

Lenten kail. Lent or thin broth. 

Likit, liked. 

Limmek, a scoundrel. 

I.iNG, long dry grass. 

Lippy, quarter of a peck measure. 

I.iTHER, lazy. 

Lone, lonely. 

Lunt, a match. 

Lurdane, worthless. 

Meal girnel, meal-chest. 

Melder, the portion of meal sent for grind- 
ing to the mill at one time. 

Messan, a cur. 

Misleared, ill-bred. 

Moss HAG, a bog-pit. 

Mug-ewe, a long-woolled sheep. 

My certes ! my faith ! 

Neist, next. 

OwER. OYer. 

Out o’ gate, out of the way. 

Pantoufle, a slipper. 

Peaklins, a kind of lace. 

Pedder-coffe, travelling merchant. 
Pinners, a lady’s head-dress with lappets. 
Pleuch-pettle, the plough stick for clear- 
ing the earth, sometimes the plough stilt. 
Ploy, an entertainment, a. gaudeamus. 
Pock-pudding, an epithet applied to Eng- 
lishmen. 

Pyet words, ornate language. 

Rape, a rope. 

Redd, to clear. 

Rede, counsel, advice. 

Rickle, a heap. 


Rokelay, a short cloak. 

Rowan-tree, the mountain-ash. 

Rung, a cudgel. 

Sain, to bless. 

Saunt, saint. 

Saut-fat, a salt-cellar. 

Sell, self. 

Sey, woollen cloth. 

Shoon, shoes. 

Skelp, gallop. 

.Sough, calm sought a quiet tongue. 
SpAE-wiFE, a fortune-teller. 

Speer, to inquire. 

Spence, the pantry. 

Springald, a smart youth. 

Stammel, reddish. 

Steek, a stitch. 

Steer, disturb. 

SwANKiK, a smart fellow. 

Syne, since, ago. 

Tale-pyet, tell-tale. 

Thraw, to twist. 

Threep, to aver or contend for. 

Tikl, to turn or twist. 

Tillyvally, trifling, impertinent 
Tocher, dowry. 

Tod, a fox. 

Toddy, whiskey w'ith hot water and sugar. 
Trangam, a trinket. 

Trotters, sheep’s feet singed. 

Tuilzie, a scuffle or imbroglio. 

Twal, twelve. 

Umquhile, the deceased. 

Usquebagh, whiskey. 

Vi VERS, victuals. 

Wadna, would not. 

Wanion, misfortune. 

Waur, worse. 

Wean, an infant or child. 

We;ft, a signal. 

Wrisk, to guide, direct, or turn. 

Wfm, a mark. 

WiiiLK, which. 

Whinger, a heavy sort of sword. 

Whirried, whirled. 

Winn A, will not. 

Wylie-coat, an under coat or vest 

Yammer, to whimper or whine. 

Yoldring, the yellow-hammer. 


INDEX TO THE ABBOT 


wiRACLE, a miracle ! 135 

hot Ambrosius, 122 ; his speech to the 

evellers, 132 ; meeting with his brother, 

44 ; admonishes Roland at Kinross, 305 : 

ppears at Lochleven Castle, 385 ; at Lang- 

ide battlefield, 410. 

bot of Unreason, 125 ; note, 435. 

bods heart, burial of, 431 ; note on, 445. 

chtermuchty the carrier, 365. 

thods brains, a kind of milk, 3. 

enel, Julian, Roland’s likeness to, 187 ; 

he father of Roland, 405. 

sncl. Lady, on the battlements, 15 ; takes 

loland into her service, 28 ; expels him, 

9- 

tD in thy bosom, 79. 

ukhoolie. See Boniface. 

liface, Abbot (Blinkhoolie), 311, 395 ; at 

)undrennan, 425. 

lins of an author, 3. 

dget, the Abbess, 93. 

ice’s heart, burial of, 6 ; note, 445. 

THERINE Seyton, 96 j espied by Roland 
1 Edinburgh, i66 ; supposed to be at the j 
ostelrie, 195 ; at Lochleven, 226 ; presents | 
loland with a rosary-, 265 : delight at his | 
ffer of aid to the Queen, 335 ; likeness to I 
er brother, 376 ; marriage, 431. j 

ilmers’ Life of Queen Mary, 408. 
tterbuck. Author’s letter to, 9. 
okstone Castle, 415 ; note on, 443. 
iwn of the causeway, 161. 

rnley’s murder, 340. 
ra of the Howlethirst, 139. 
molition, spirit of, 137. 
jnily offended, difficulties of, 265. 

;tors and their fees, 284. 
gs and their foibles, 19. 

.iglas ! Douglas ! tender and true, 387. 
jglas, Ceorge, at Lochleven. 261 : failure 
) effect the Queen’s escape, 325 ; witness- 
s Dryfesdali’s death, 367 ; protects Mary 
gainst the bullets, 394 ; unwilling to min- 
le with the nobles, 401 ; death of, 419. 
/fesdale the steward, 314 : angry inter- ' 
iew with Roland, 331 ; attempt to poison ■ 
le Queen, 344 : his fatalism, 364 ; slain ' 
y .Seyton, 367. | 

ndrennan Abbey, reception of Mary, 434. 1 

i 

i.vBURGH, approach to, 157. ! 

ward Glendinning. See Abbot Am- ' 
rosius. 


Evil spirits, note on, 439. 

Ex oribus parvulorum ! 339. 

P'anaticis.m, different kinds, 106. 

Fatalism of Dryfesdale, 364. 

Fictitious and real narrative, 7. 

Fleming, Dame Mary, 256. 

Glendinning, Dame. See Avenel, Lady. 

Glendinning, Edward. See Abbot Am- 
brosius. 

Glendinning, Sir Halbert, return to Avenel 
Castle, 31 ; arrival at the Abbey, 138 ; 
meeting with his brother, 144 ; pursues 
Roland and the Queen at Langside, 420 ; 
lineage of, note, 433. 

Glendonwyne lineage, note on, 433. 

Goss-hawk, note on, 434. 

Graeme. See Roland and Magdalen. 

Henderson, Elias, the chaplain, ass ; in* 
terview with Roland, 270 ; admonishes the 
Queen, 275. 

Hobby-horse revel, note on, 436. 

Holland, Sir Richard, 387. 

Hollander, more a trader than warrior, 34. 

Holyrood, time of tale, 171. 

Hostelrie of St. Michael, 191. 

Howlet poem, 387. 

Hunting mass, 123. 

I AM Mary Stewart once more, 224. 

Insults, petty, effect on determined minds, 
349- 

Kennaquhair Monastery, 117. 

Kiery Craigs, note on, 441. 

Kirk of Field, 159. 

Kinross, revels at, 288. 

Knox, John, Morton’s opinion of, 210. 

Langside Battle, 415 : note on, 443. 

Lihas, the waiting maid, 29 ; informs on Ro- 
land. 47 : makes his rosary into shoe- 
buckles, 64. 

Lindesay, Lord, 210; reception by the Queen, 
228 : kneels to Mary, but not to the Queen, 
246. 

Lochleven Castle. 215 ; life at, 257 ; escape 
of Queen Mary, 391 : note, 433, 

Lochleven, Lady of, 218 ; alarm for the 
Queen, 343 ; reminded of her youthful 
frailties, 381, 

Lundin, Dr. Luke, 280; brought to the Cas- 
tle, 354- 


29 


450 


INDEX TO THE ABBOT. 


Magdalen GRiEME, interview with Lady 
Avenel, 23 ; meets her grandson at St. 
Cuthberds, 78 ; requires from him absolute 
obedience, 90: indignation at the mummers, 
133 ; gives Roland a token for Catherine, 
150 ; as “ Mother Nicneven,” at Kinross, 
286 ; upbraids Roland, 300 ; brought to 
Lochleven Castle, 355 ; enthusiasm for the 
Queen, 358; protests Roland’s noble blood, 
404 - 

Maiden of Morton, 177. 

Mary Stewart, connection with Bothwell, 
157 : at Lochleven, 219 ; reception of the 
lords, 227 ; abdication of, 244 ; life at Loch- 
leven, 257 ; interview with the Protestant 
chaplain, 275 ; scene on the failure cf her 
escape, 325 ; receives Roland’s offer of 
succor, 337 ; reminded of Darnley’s mur- 
der, 340 ; attempt on her life, 345 ; exxul- 
pates Lady Lochleven, 358 ; reminds her 
of her youthful frailties. 381 ; premonition 
of violent death, 388 ; escape, 391 ; the 
cares of liberty, 403 ; at the battle of Lang- 
side, 415 ; apostrophizes her unhappy ad- 
mirers, 421 ; departure from Scodand, 
426 ; Author’s portraiture of, note, 433 ; 
resignation of, note, 441 ; her demeanor, 
note, 442 ; escape of, note, 442. 

Mass, the hunting, 123. 

Melrose Abbey, 117: masquerade at, 126; 

favored by Robert Bruce, note, 445. 
Melville, Sir Robert, 212. 

Michael Wing-the-Wind, 173. 

^ Morton, Earl of, interview with Murray, 183. 
Muffled man, 370. 

Mummery at the Abbey, 126. 

Murray, the Regent, iSo. 

Np.v WORKS, judgment on, 5. 

Nicneven, Mother. See Magdalen. 

Niddrie Castle, arrival of the Queen at, 398. 
Nun of Kent, 115. 

Obedience, blindfold, has litde merit, 89. 

Personal exhortations, 51. 

Peter Bridgeward, 153. 

Physicians and their payment, 284. 

Protestant heresy, guards against, 308. 

Pulpit, power of, time of tale, 51. 

Ralph Fisher, encounter with Roland, 66 . 
Raymond Lully, 48. 

Resignation of the Queen, 244 ; note, 441. 
Revenge, a high-flavored draught, 347. 

Rizzio, place of his assassination, 178 ; 

Lindesay’s part in the murder of, 232. 

Robin Hood and Little John, note, 437. 
Roland Grseme rescued on the lake, 16 ; 
knocks down the falconer, 44 ; preached 
at, and leaves the chapel, 53 ; expelled the 
castle, 60 ; encounter with Ralph Fisher, 
66; assisted by Woodcock, 71; meets 
Magdalen at St. Cuthbert’s. 78 ; atmch- 
ment to Church of Rome, 85 ; first meeting 
with Catherine, 99 ; stabs the Abbot of Un- 
reason, 134 ; re-enters Glendinning’s ser- 
vice, 142 ; sets off for Edinburgh, 151 ; aids 
the Seytons, i63 ; enters Catherine’s house, 
167 ; taken into Regent Murray’s service. 


183 ; likeness to Julian Avenel, 187 ; meet* 
ing with Henry Seylon at the hoslelric, 
194 ; appointed page to the Queen, 208 ; 
enters Lochleven Castle, 218 ; his support 
of the Queen, 226 ; draws Seyton’s sword 
240 ; interview with Douglas about Cath 
erine, 263 : receives a rosary from her, 
265 ; warned by the chaplain, 270 ; visits 
the revels at Kinross, 279 ; meeting with 
Henry Seyton, 293 ; Magdalen Graeme, 
300 ; and Abbot Ambrosius, 305 ; receives 
absolution, 309 ; altercation with Dryfts- 
dale, 314 ; scene at night in the garden, 
3:'2 ; determines to aid the Queen’s escape, 
335 : interview with Catherine about her 
likeness to her brother, 378 ; forges false 
keys, 381 ; and escapes thereby, 391 ; dis- 
pute with Heniy Seyton about his lineage, 
403 ; assists him at Langside battlefield, 
419; account of his birth — and rrarriage, 

430- 

Rosabelle, Mary’s horse, 397, 

St. Bridget Chapel, note, 434. 

St. Cuthbert’s cell, 74 ; note 00,433. 

St. Michael’s hostelrie, 191. 

St. Peter, first successors of, 119. 

.St. Serf Island, 320. 

Scorn, the mastery over anger, 230. 

Sermon, Henry Warden’s, 51. 

Seyton. See Catherine. 

Seyton, Henry, at the hostelrie, 194 ; dressed 
as aladyat Kinross, 293: accidentally frus- 
trates the Queen’s escape, 324 ; stabs 
Dryfesdale, 367 ; dispute with Roland at 
Niddrie, 403 ; aided by' Roland at Lang- 
side, and death, 419. 

Seyton, Lord, fight with the Leslie.s, i6i ; 
rewards Roland, 171 ; protects him fror. 
his sons, 405 ; note on, 440. 

Spirits, evil, note on, 439. 

'1 HE friars of h ail drank berry-brown ah 
155 - 

The Paip, that pagan full of pride, 137. 

Tillmouth chapel, note, 434. 

Title, a taking, 7. 

Trim-go- trix, 137. 

1'ruth, when it serves my turn, 186. 

Unreason, Abbot of, 125; note on, 435, 
437 - 

Violence, when raw and recent, 76. 

Warden, Henry, admonishes Lady Avenel, 
20 ; his sermon on Roland, 51. 

Wingate, the steward, 44 ; his political spec 
ulations. 64. {[ 

Witch of Berkeley, 124. 

Wolf rescues Roland, 17; joy at seeing hi; 
master, 37. 

Woodcock the falconer, 43 : assists Roland 
71 : dressed as the Abbot of Unreason 
^33. 139 : accompanies Roland to Edin 
burgh, 152 ; advices, 164 : meets an ole 
companion, 173 ; switched by Henry Sey 
ton. 200 : last admonitions to Roland, 206 
struck down by Roland at Langside, anc 
recognition, 422. 




« 







I %<& 


o 




V ^ -i , 

'_ c,'^ 


^ ; xo ^ ^ 

» w^w5—^ . r\. .1 





z 

viV'' ^ oV 

’^^0,.-<^*A r' *f J .s ,u 

,-^ .f, -i'i "•" C » " “ ♦ '"^^ * * .o"^ ^ 

•#> aN ^ ^ATv_w . V ^ , 

;<i - -^o " 

« 



■ ■ (x"^ c ' ' » -e 


w 

O 



%. 


Y ft 0 , 'j 

^ N 

•<5 5i ^ 

Ai ^ 



xO 


,'^‘ of' O y <, 

sO^ ^0' 
^'0 


‘■^2^ '' 0 4> K . \^ / 

. . a'^ .s555^«i^ y 



o 

:■ -^c^ ■"* 

... ' 0 ^ 


^ ^ o. 


^ " 

-ov^' = 

ICfCs 

Q^ c 



<1 r\ <#• ^ N ^ r\ 

O^ ^ * 0 ^ ^ s ^ 0^ 

■i^ ♦^j<\'1#’a,*"' 0.V *^y»SS&C^ c,'^'^ .'• 



> oA ¥»<• ✓• 


XX o -O 

0> 

<<. a'^ -"f. 

\V ^ 

.^ %. -; ^ 

-cv.. 'V'^-V'" ’o-> V' 

^ O i» r^SN\ ^ 

- '^aV = V. - 



It ' 


y ^'<Vov>s^ /X <^ 

O y 'Vysr^ * rC^ fp- i. 

o t r. .X ■> ^0 ^ * 

s » o , ^ ^ ^ ^ o^ <y i' . 


✓ ^ ^ ^ . ^“04/ 

t ^ ,. ■> ,0 ^ * 

^ />^ '. ft O ^-x * « I ' 

. -► O' i- ^ " A > 

a'^ " ’*“ rv 5?- >* . "^r. 

V *.^^r /,)». = .0 



‘9 u.r 


" « - V x\^ 



■> ^ 








- <.s '^rv if cr aV-=^ - f! c> -Cp 

^**''<^.v.., '^b "*^V cO"^-. *‘ ,0^ 

^ Jtvv/^^ * ^ 'p, \ #cLk^^ 




o< * 




. 0 “ 

oV % ' ‘ " 


C^ I- 






V I t 


C.'. 


^■t^ ‘~ v'^ < 1 . ' c> -> r »0 

♦ » I A * \^ s » * / rk> 

' -^i. .V '■ ♦ WV' 

o 'o,>.'‘\^ , 1 . 

" -i' ' <c:iA', % > 

>-' -bv -^o' 

• f . ' ’ '' ° * o>" ■ • i ’ ' 

. v.%#/k‘''- •><. j,'- j* '_ \. <f' 



■'^2 ^ r\ p ^ C 

. wr ,P 

c-^ ^ 0 ^ *'7^^.' 

^ - C_^ '^^♦«|A \V.,* 

^ 'c* *®^ > \' v" 

’ -f* a'X ' r «5 5* ♦ 

*- % * if 






OlV 


V’X 

cJ^ 'J?< 


c 




.iiy 


b ,, 

» A 

^ 0°’ .'1^ 

^ O 

^ “O 

^j. _>t '' yM 

'O'^ /> ^ 


Y > ^' ^ • 

M ^ A 








